Liberian dollar

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19th Century Liberian dollar

The dollar (currency code LRD) has been the currency of Liberia since 1943. It was also the country's currency between 1847 and 1907. It is normally abbreviated with the dollar sign $, or alternatively L$ to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies. It is divided into 100 cents.

History

The first Liberian dollars were issued in 1847. These were pegged to the US dollar and circulated until 1907, when Liberia adopted the West African pound, which was pegged to sterling. United States currency replaced the West African pound in Liberia in 1943 and circulated alone until 1960, when Liberia began issuing its own dollar once more, though initially only in coins.

Liberia augmented American coins and notes with its own coins of 1¢, 2¢, 5¢, 10¢, 25¢, 50¢ and L$1. The flight of suitcase-loads of USD paper in the economic collapse following the April 12, 1980 coup d'état created a currency shortage, which was only exacerbated when the government began minting $5 coins. Unfortunately the 7-sided coins were the same size and weight as the one-dollar coin; this similarity was frequently abused by traders.

In the late 1980s the coins were largely replaced with a newly-designed $5 bill modeled after the USD greenback. The design was modified during the 1990-2004 civil war to ostracize bills looted from the Central Bank of Liberia. This effectively created two currency zones -- the new bills were legal tender in government-held areas (primarily Monrovia), while the old bills were legal tender in non-government areas. Each was of course illegal in the other territory.

With the election of the Charles Taylor government in 1997 a new series of bills were printed in denominations of $5, $10, $20, $50, and $100, and are in current use.

External links

[Liberian banknotes]

Currencies of Africa
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