5 Dollars - Elizabeth II

The Bahamas Monetary Authority was itself a transitional institution — created in 1968 to manage currency after the dissolution of the Board of Commissioners of Currency, but preceding the central bank that would follow with independence in 1973. This note belongs to that brief interregnum: neither colonial scrip nor fully sovereign issue, but something in between, reflecting a government preparing its own monetary infrastructure without yet having full control of it.

De La Rue's intaglio work on this series is among the sharper production runs the Authority commissioned. The watermark is a simple banded element, unremarkable technically but sufficient for the period's circulation requirements in the islands.