The 2018 10 pula is the note with which Botswana moved its busiest denomination onto polymer. The Bank of Botswana issued it on 1 February 2018 and explained the choice simply: a plastic substrate lasts longer in circulation than paper.

The front shows President Seretse Khama Ian Khama, son of the country’s first president; he had led Botswana since 2008 and, two months after the note appeared, on 1 April 2018, handed office to Mokgweetsi Masisi. The back shows the National Assembly building in Gaborone.

The note was printed by Britain’s De La Rue on its Safeguard polymer substrate, keeping the design of its paper predecessor. The new material allowed features paper could not carry: MASK, a complex variant of the Gemini technology, and a tactile emboss that lets blind people identify the denomination.

For a Botswana collection it marks the move of the denomination from paper to polymer, and in a set of African polymer notes it is the type with Ian Khama’s portrait, issued in the last weeks of his presidency. UNC condition means the note has never circulated: no folds, no wear, no soiling, even corners — just as it left the press.

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