5 Pounds - Elizabeth II 150th Anniversary of British rule

Issued to mark 150 years since Britain formally established its presence in the Falklands following the expulsion of Argentine forces in January 1833, this note arrived just months after the 1982 war — a conflict that had briefly suspended normal island life entirely and raised genuine questions about whether the Crown would hold the territory at all. The timing was deliberate. A commemorative currency issue in 1983 carried obvious political weight that a quieter anniversary might not have demanded.

De La Rue's watermark security on this series is relatively modest by the firm's own standards of the period, though for a small-population territory with limited circulation volume, elaborate anti-counterfeiting measures were never the priority.