20 Dollars L.1960

Jamaica's $20 note entered circulation during a period of significant monetary pressure — the mid-1970s saw the Manley government's turn toward democratic socialism, IMF negotiations, and a crawling devaluation of the Jamaican dollar that had been pegged at parity with the US dollar only since 1969. The $20 denomination was not trivial street currency; it represented purchasing power that ordinary Jamaicans felt eroding in real time.

De La Rue had printed Jamaican notes since independence, and the Legal Tender Law cited — L.1960 — predates the Bank of Jamaica Act itself, a legislative quirk that persisted through multiple series simply because no parliament moved to update the citation on printed stock.