Catalog
See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration!
or register with email
Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!
20 Leones
| Issuer | Bank of Sierra Leone |
|---|---|
| Year | 1982-1984 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Leone (1964-2023) |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Size | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Log in to see details |
| Printer | Log in to see details |
| Designer(s) | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Printed in brown, red, and green intaglio over a multicolour underprint, the obverse centres on a tree vignette flanked by guilloche patterning, with a portrait of President Siaka Stevens at right. The bank title runs across the upper register and the promise-to-pay legend across the lower. Denomination numerals appear at the corners within decorative panel borders. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | The reverse carries a central intaglio vignette of two youths engaged in alluvial pan mining against a landscape of palm trees and hills; the figure at left crouches over a sieve pan while the second bends forward at centre. Decorative geometric and rosette guilloche panels in brown, orange, and gold border the composition on both sides, with the denomination numeral '20' repeated at each corner. |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Signature(s) | Log in to see details |
| Protection type | Log in to see details |
| Protection description | Log in to see details |
| Variants | Log in to see details |
| Comments |
Sierra Leone's 20 Leones notes of this period were issued during a stretch of acute economic difficulty — the early 1980s saw the country running chronic balance-of-payments deficits and growing dependence on IMF support, which gave circulating banknotes a harder working life than in more stable economies. De La Rue's involvement was continuous across multiple Sierra Leone series, and the P#14 shares plate lineage with adjacent denominations in the 1980–84 program.
The single watermark security feature was minimal even by the standards of the time. Counterfeiting pressure on West African notes of this denomination was real enough that later issues required additional protection.