50 Cedis

Ghana's 1965 note issues came at a politically turbulent moment: Kwame Nkrumah's government was in its final months before the February 1966 coup that ended the First Republic. The 50 Cedis was a high-denomination note in a country where the Cedi itself had only been introduced in 1965 to replace the Ghanaian pound at a rate of 1.2 Cedis to the pound — a decimal reform tied directly to Nkrumah's broader modernization program.

Thomas De La Rue printed the series, as they had most West African colonial and post-independence issues of the period. Following the coup, the new military government, the National Liberation Council, moved quickly to demonetize notes associated with Nkrumah's administration.