5 Thalers Courant

The Preußische Bank was itself a transitional institution — established in 1847 as the successor to the Königliche Hauptbank, it operated under close state supervision until the founding of the Reichsbank in 1876 absorbed it entirely. This 1856 note predates the unification of German currency under the Thaler standard's final years; the Courant designation distinguished these notes from the older Prussian Courant coinage system, anchoring face value to a specific silver weight convention that would itself be abolished within two decades.

The Staatsdruckerei in Berlin had been printing official securities since the early nineteenth century, and by the 1850s its intaglio work was technically accomplished. Surviving examples of this series frequently show ink offset on the reverse from storage.