1 Franc - State Loan Bank reserve banknote

Switzerland printed this series in 1938 as a wartime contingency reserve — these notes were never intended for ordinary circulation but were stockpiled against the possibility that the Swiss National Bank's regular issue could be disrupted or exhausted under mobilization conditions. The State Loan Bank (Darlehenskasse) series had a direct precedent in the emergency franc notes issued during the First World War, and the authorities clearly remembered that lesson.

Orell Füssli had been the SNB's trusted security printer for decades by this point, and the in-country production was deliberate — no dependency on foreign presses in a crisis. Most of the print run was never released.