10 Franken

The Toggenburger Bank was one of dozens of small cantonal and regional note-issuing institutions operating in Switzerland before the Federal Banking Act of 1881 consolidated the right of issue. Lichtensteig is a minor market town in the Toggenburg valley of St. Gallen canton — a modest base for a bank of issue, which is part of what makes this piece unusual. These regional Swiss franken notes were never produced in large quantities, and circulation was often geographically narrow.

Pick 468 is catalogued as rare. The survival rate for notes from small Swiss regional banks of this period is genuinely low — redemption obligations and the post-1881 withdrawal process eliminated most of the circulating stock.