The Bahamas Dollar – as Interesting as a $3 bill

The Bahamas are a series of islands in the Caribbean Sea. Today it is probably best known as a cruise ship destination or for other tourism. The country itself has an interesting history. Today it uses the Bahamas Dollar but, we will go over its past history of coins and banknotes.

The Bahamas is known as the first landing location by Christopher Columbus on October 12, 1492. What he found was a lush forest filled island with a population of a probably 40,000 people who had long before emigrated from South America by way of other islands. Spanish military and traders came to these islands looking for gold. Finding none, they had little interest in the island except they enslaved nearly all the people and transported them to other islands.

Nearly abandoned, the Bahamas became home for many pirates and other privateers. The difficult navigation and hazards from reefs made it an ideal location from captains who knew the area. But with a lot of shipwrecks it also became an area of conflict between Spain and England over whom could reclaim the treasure. This history is shown well in the movie “Captain Blood” from 1935. England would eventually establish dominance over the islands and it became a British colony. As such, it adopted the Shilling and Pound as its currency.

Early Currency History

The Bahamas had some of its own paper currency in the 1800s, but it didn’t really establish a single currency until after World War I. As an English colony, these banknotes prominently showed King George V. Printed by Waterlow & Sons in the UK, the 4 Shilling, 10 Shilling and 1 Pound notes showed both local landscapes and English images. In 1936, new banknotes were printed with the new King, George VI, and then changed again in 1953 with the crowning of Queen Elizabeth II. All of these banknotes are highly collectable and one of the few locations where there are banknotes with all 3 sovereigns.

First Series of Bahamas Dollar

In 1965, the Bahamas decimalized its banknotes as dollars and pegged its exchange rate to the US Dollar (8 years before it became independent from the UK). The bank issued half Dollars, 1 Dollar, 3 Dollar and 5 Dollar banknotes. The added the Bahamas 10 Dollar in 1968, the $20 and $50 in 1974 and the $100 in 1992. So why a half dollar and $3 banknote? In 1965 the exchange rate was $2.80 USD to 1 GBP. So the $½ was close to the value of the 4 shilling note and the $3 was close to the value of 1 GBP. Somehow an equal to the 10 shilling was left out. The government did put out a $0.15 coin thought because it was equal to about 1 shilling.

Current Generation

Until 1992, all banknotes issued contained a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II. Like many other former colonies, they began replacing the Queen with local leaders, leaving the Queen only on 1 or 2 banknote denominations. The most recent Bahamian banknotes have dramatically changed their designs to focus more on local flora and fauna. The 2005 and 2016 series are called CRISP series (Counterfeit Resistant Integrated Security Product. They are portrait oriented and very colorful. The Queen remains on the $ $½ , $3 and the $100.  It would seem they are trying to maintain these low denominations more as tourist souvenirs than for use in commerce. The Bahamas did issue a $1 commemorative in 1992 celebrating the landing of Christopher Columbus 500 years before. 

Bahamian banknotes are interesting for collectors. Whether it is for collectors of Queen banknotes, or collectors of colorful notes with fish and animals, there is enough variety for everyone.