Bradbury Wilkinson printed this series during a relatively stable stretch of Ba'athist governance, before the currency apparatus became entangled in the funding demands of successive wars. By the early 1970s, Iraq's oil revenues were climbing sharply — the 1972 nationalization of the Iraq Petroleum Company followed just a year after this note's issue date, fundamentally changing the state's relationship with hard currency and foreign exchange management.
BWC's New Malden facility handled security printing for dozens of issuing authorities across the Middle East and Africa through this period. The watermark was the sole mechanical security feature — modest by later Iraqi standards, which incorporated increasingly complex measures as forgery and sanctions-era counterfeiting became pressing concerns through the 1980s and 1990s.
Bradbury Wilkinson printed this series during a relatively stable stretch of Ba'athist governance, before the currency apparatus became entangled in the funding demands of successive wars. By the early 1970s, Iraq's oil revenues were climbing sharply — the 1972 nationalization of the Iraq Petroleum Company followed just a year after this note's issue date, fundamentally changing the state's relationship with hard currency and foreign exchange management.
BWC's New Malden facility handled security printing for dozens of issuing authorities across the Middle East and Africa through this period. The watermark was the sole mechanical security feature — modest by later Iraqi standards, which incorporated increasingly complex measures as forgery and sanctions-era counterfeiting became pressing concerns through the 1980s and 1990s.