5 Rigsbankdaler Nationalbanken, 2nd issue

Nationalbanken i Kjøbenhavn was established by royal charter in 1818 as a privately owned institution — unusual for a central bank — tasked with stabilizing a Danish monetary system still fractured by the state bankruptcy of 1813. The Rigsbankdaler itself was the transitional currency introduced after that collapse, replacing the discredited Rigsdaler kurant at a punishing 6:1 ratio. By 1835, when this second issue appeared, public confidence had only partially recovered.

Gustav Hetsch was primarily an architect and designer in the neoclassical tradition, his involvement here reflecting how Denmark drew on its decorative arts establishment rather than specialist security printers. The impressed stamp — essentially a blind emboss — was the primary anti-forgery measure, a relatively modest precaution by contemporary standards.