Catalog
5 Pounds
| Issuer | His Majesty's Treasury, Freetown |
|---|---|
| Year | 180x |
| Type | Non-issued banknote |
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| Obverse description | Uniface note with letterpress text. Upper left carries the bold legend SIERRA LEONE / FIVE POUNDS, followed by a promise-to-pay text referencing the Lords Commissioners of His Majesty's Treasury, Freetown, issued for the Governor and Council of the Colony of Sierra Leone. Five large circles arranged in a quincunx pattern at lower left serve as a denomination mark for illiterate recipients; serial number space and Entered notation below. |
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| Obverse lettering | SIERRA LEONE FIVE POUNDS I promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of STERLING in Bills on the Right Honourable the Lords Commissioners of His Majesty's Treasury. FREETOWN 180 For the Governor and Council of the Colony of Sierra Leone No. Entered |
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| Comments |
His Majesty's Treasury issues from Freetown, Sierra Leone are among the rarest and least-documented colonial paper issues in West African numismatics. The "180x" dating indicates the exact year of this note is unconfirmed or illegible — not uncommon for early Sierra Leone material, where surviving examples are few enough that establishing a firm typology remains difficult.
Sierra Leone became a Crown Colony in 1808, and Treasury notes of this period were essentially instruments of administrative convenience in a settlement still being consolidated. No major commercial bank operated there until the Bank of British West Africa arrived decades later.