Catalog
5 Dollars
| Issuer | Treasury of Liberia |
|---|---|
| Year | 1858-1863 |
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| Composition | Paper |
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| Obverse description | Central vignette at upper centre shows an engraved coastal scene with a full-rigged sailing ship at anchor beside a tall palm tree, printed in dark brown on an uncoloured ground. The denomination FIVE DOLLARS is repeated vertically in ornate letterpress within heavily shaded side panels at left and right margins. The promise-to-pay text, rendered in a mix of bold display type and copperplate script, occupies the lower half of the note, with a hand-filled date line reading Monrovia and two manuscript signatures below, attributed to the Secretary of the Treasury and the Vice President respectively. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | Plain unprinted reverse on aged cream paper stock, bearing no vignette, lettering, or ornamental work, consistent with the simple Treasury issue practice of the period. |
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| Comments |
The Treasury of Liberia began issuing paper money in the 1850s partly because the republic lacked the hard currency reserves to sustain commerce — coin was chronically scarce, and trade with American merchant interests demanded a functional medium of exchange. These early Treasury notes were effectively government obligations rather than bank-issued currency, since Liberia had no central bank at the time.
P#9 is among the rarest of the series. The five-year date range reflects uncertainty about when individual notes were actually signed and released, not a continuous print run — surviving examples suggest issuance was sporadic and small in volume.