MK1 — One Kwacha
The artwork
Front: Hastings Kamuzu Banda, Life President of Malawi, in an oval frame of fine guilloche work at the right — the face on every kwacha note of his rule. To the left, a coconut palm leans over Lake Malawi, a fisherman poling a dugout canoe across the water, with a sun rising in ruled rays behind the hills. The bank's promise to pay K1, the date 1st MAY 1992, a single Governor's signature, and the line "ISSUED UNDER THE RESERVE BANK OF MALAWI ACT 1989". "One Kwacha" is spelled out at lower left.
Back: Tobacco, plainly labelled as such: two growers at work in a dense field of broad-leaved plants, one standing among the rows and smiling out, the other bent to the crop, with flowering tops and a range of hills beyond. Tobacco was and remains Malawi's chief export earner, so the choice is less decorative than statistical. Corner K1 counters sit on wedge-shaped panels of red and violet, over pale green guilloche. date. 1992 May.
In circulation
Introduced on the 1992 date it bears, in the last years of one-party rule. After the 1994 transition the Banda portrait was dropped, and from 1997 the notes carried John Chilembwe instead; the K1 itself gave way to a coin and the paper note was retired.
Details
- IssuerReserve Bank of Malawi, under the Reserve Bank of Malawi Act 1989
- CurrencyKwacha (MK)
- DenominationOne Kwacha
- Collectedon the Malawi journey, 1992
- SeriesDated 1st May 1992
- WatermarkCockerel, in the pale panel at the left of the face
- SignatureOne, the Governor