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The Banque de Syrie et du Grand-Liban was itself a creation of French mandate politics — chartered in 1919 as a private institution under French control to serve as the currency authority across Syria and the newly configured Greater Lebanon. Printing was handled by the Banque de France, which lent the series a technical quality well above what most mandate-era colonial authorities managed.

Clément Serveau's design work here predates his better-known French colonial commissions by several years. The reverse engraving is credited to Marguerite Dreyfus — known professionally as "Rita" — one of very few women to hold an engraving credit at this level during the interwar period.