20 Francs 2nd series, type 1

The Swiss National Bank opened for business in 1907, and this note belongs to the very first generation of standardized federal currency — an assertion of central banking authority over a system that had previously relied on a patchwork of cantonal and private issuers. The sheer number of signature combinations here is a direct consequence of Swiss institutional structure: three signatories were required per note, drawn from different positions within the bank's governing hierarchy, and personnel turnover across an eleven-year print run produced the sprawling matrix visible in the data.

Orell Füssli had been printing in Zurich since the sixteenth century and was the SNB's primary security printer from the outset. The "2nd series, type 1" designation signals that this replaced an initial design almost immediately — the first series had a notably short lifespan before the SNB revised its approach to the 20-Franc denomination.