Solomon Islands P-38b B225b 5 Dollars ND (2022) Polymer

A striking polymer note from the Pacific's most biodiverse archipelago — built around the yellowfin tuna, one of the ocean's great apex predators, and the ancient communal fishing traditions that have sustained island life for millennia.

Front

• Colors:
  • White/cream polymer base
  • Deep navy-blue dominant engraving
  • Red serial number; teal and black geometric border strip at right; light blue numeral accents
• Large black engraved yellowfin tuna leaping at left, overlapping a transparent polymer window containing a dark teal fish-hook signal motif
• Coat of arms of Solomon Islands at center — crocodile and shark supporters, eagle crest, sun, and scroll reading To Lead Is To Serve
• Serial number in red at left (vertical) and black at right
• Geometric black-and-teal patterned security strip at far right with blue frigate bird silhouette at top
• Wave and coral motif in blue at lower left
• Signatures: Luke Forau, Gov., Central Bank of Solomon Islands; Harry Degruit Kuma, Secretary of Finance

Back

• Colors:
  • White/cream polymer base
  • Deep navy-blue dominant engraving
  • Yellow-gold CBSI emblem at left; teal and green national flag in transparent window; black geometric border strip
• Traditional communal spear-fishing scene at center — multiple figures wading and standing in shallow water, spears raised, with a dugout canoe in the background
• Transparent polymer window at upper left showing the Solomon Islands national flag in color (blue, green, yellow diagonal stripe, white stars)
• Yellow-gold Central Bank of Solomon Islands (CBSI) ring emblem at left
• Transparent window at right repeating the tuna and fish-hook motif from the front
• Wave and coral motif in blue at lower right
• Geometric black-and-teal patterned security strip at upper left

Other Characteristics

• Varieties:
  • ND (2019) — DHR", FF — TBB# 221a, P# 38a
  • ND (2022) — LF, HDK — TBB# 221b, P# 38b — this note
  • ND (2019) Specimen — TBB# 221as
  • ND (2019) Commemorative folder (500 printed) — TBB# BNP205a
• Catalog numbers: P-38b; TBB B221b; Numista N#202376
• Watermark: Under backlight, five fish appear beneath the left polymer window
• Composition: Polymer (Guardian®)
• Size: 131 × 67 mm
• Issuing entity: Central Bank of Solomon Islands
• Printer: Note Printing Australia, Melbourne
• Demonetized: No — legal tender
• Signatures: Luke Forau, Gov., Central Bank of Solomon Islands; Harry Degruit Kuma, Secretary of Finance
• Currency: Solomon Islands Dollar (SBD)
• Official/spoken languages: English (official); Pijin (lingua franca); ~70 indigenous Melanesian languages

About Solomon Islands

• Origin of name: Named by Spanish explorer Álvaro de Mendaña in 1568, who believed he had found the source of King Solomon's gold — the biblical Ophir
• Capital: Honiara (city pop. ~82,000; metro ~130,000)
  • Origin of name: Derived from Nagho ni ara in the local Gela language, meaning "facing the southeast wind"
• Population: ~740,000 (UN 2023) — similar to Alaska or North Dakota
• Area: 28,400 km² (10,965 mi²) — similar to Albania or Maryland
• GDP per capita (PPP): ~$2,900 (IMF 2023)
• Main exports: Timber, fish, palm oil, cocoa, copra
• Borders: None (island nation); maritime neighbors include Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu
• Official/spoken languages: English (official); Pijin (lingua franca); ~70 indigenous Melanesian languages
• Ethnicities: Melanesian (~95%), Polynesian (~3%), Micronesian (~1%), other (~1%)
• Memberships: United Nations (1978); Commonwealth of Nations (1978); Pacific Islands Forum (1978); Melanesian Spearhead Group (founding member, 1988)
• Sovereignty:
  • Inhabited for at least 30,000 years — among the earliest human settlements in the Pacific
  • Spanish contact (1568) — Mendaña's expedition; no colonization followed
  • British Protectorate (1893–1978) — administered as the British Solomon Islands Protectorate
  • Independence (7 July 1978) — constitutional monarchy under the British Crown
  • Ethnic tensions / RAMSI (1998–2017) — civil conflict between Guadalcanal and Malaita islanders; resolved by the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands
  • Constitutional monarchy (1978–date) — King Charles III as head of state; this note issued during this period

Solomon Islands Unfiltered

The Solomon Islands sit atop the Coral Triangle — the most biodiverse marine ecosystem on Earth. More fish species live in these waters than anywhere else on the planet.

The country has no army. Its entire national security apparatus is a police force of roughly 1,100 officers for a population spread across 900 islands.

In 2019, the government switched diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to the People's Republic of China — triggering riots in Honiara's Chinatown and a political crisis that drew in Australia, the US, and Beijing simultaneously.

The Battle of Guadalcanal (1942–43) was one of the bloodiest campaigns of the Pacific War. Locals guided American forces through the jungle. Iron Bottom Sound — the strait between Guadalcanal and Florida Island — is named for the hundreds of warships and aircraft that sank there.

Subsistence fishing still feeds the majority of the population. The yellowfin tuna on this note isn't decorative — it's an economic lifeline, a diplomatic bargaining chip with distant-water fishing nations, and a cultural symbol all at once.

The country has one of the highest rates of betel nut consumption in the world. Red-stained pavements are a fixture of every market town.

Despite extreme poverty by GDP metrics, the Solomon Islands consistently rank high on global happiness and social cohesion surveys — driven by strong kinship networks, communal land ownership, and subsistence abundance.

Thirty Thousand Years Before the Tuna Note

The people who settled these islands didn't arrive by accident. They navigated open ocean in outrigger canoes using stars, swells, and bird behavior — millennia before European explorers had charts for this part of the world. The communal fishing scene on the back of this note is not a romanticized image. It is a living practice, still performed in villages across Malaita and Guadalcanal today.

The Fish That Runs the Economy

The yellowfin tuna (Thunnus albacares) can reach 180 kg and swim at 75 km/h. It is also the single most commercially valuable wild animal in the Solomon Islands' territorial waters. Foreign fishing fleets — from China, Taiwan, Japan, and the US — pay access fees to fish here. Those fees fund government services. The tuna on the front of this note is not a mascot. It is the budget.

A Polymer Note Built for the Tropics

Guardian® polymer substrate was chosen deliberately. In a country where humidity, salt air, and heat destroy paper currency within months, polymer notes last four to five times longer, resist counterfeiting, and survive a wash cycle. The transparent windows — showing the fish-hook motif and the national flag — are security features that paper cannot replicate. Note Printing Australia has produced currency for over 30 countries; this is one of their more technically sophisticated small-denomination issues.

Own This Document of the Solomon Islands

This is the 2022 signature variety — signed by Gov. Luke Forau and Secretary Harry Degruit Kuma — the most recent and hardest-to-find of the two circulating varieties. It arrives in UNC condition: no folds, no handling marks, full original polymer crispness. A Pacific island nation, an ancient fishing culture, and one of the ocean's great predators — all on a single 131 × 67 mm sheet of Guardian® polymer.

The yellowfin doesn't wait. Neither do the best notes.