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100 Shillings / 5 Pounds
| Issuer | West African Currency Board |
|---|---|
| Year | 1953-1956 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | 100 Shillings = 5 Pounds |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Printed entirely in blue, the reverse carries a central vignette of two figures engaged in a palm-fruit harvest beside a rural structure, with cut palm fronds and fruit bunches visible in the foreground. Large guilloche rosettes bearing the £5 denomination anchor the lower corners, with '100/-' counterparts at the right corners, all within a fine engine-turned frame. The printer's imprint 'WATERLOW & SONS LIMITED, LONDON' appears in small lettering at the bottom margin. |
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| Protection type | Watermark |
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| Comments |
The West African Currency Board was a colonial-era institution covering Nigeria, Gold Coast, Sierra Leone, and Gambia under a single sterling-linked currency — an arrangement that made monetary policy for millions of people subject to London's decisions rather than any elected government in the region. By the mid-1950s that model was already under political pressure. Gold Coast achieved independence in 1957, and the WACB's days were numbered; successor central banks absorbed the note-issuing function within a few years of this series closing.
Waterlow & Sons had printed for the Board since its earliest issues. The firm's receivership in 1961 — following the financial fallout from the famous Waterlow v. Bank of Portugal forgery case decades earlier — meant this late series was among their final African commissions.