50 Francs

Belgium's 1871 50 Francs issue came during a period of acute monetary sensitivity — the Franco-Prussian War had just collapsed confidence in French paper, and the Banque Nationale was under quiet pressure to demonstrate the solidity of its own circulation. The engraving is the work of Charles Wullschleger, a Swiss-born craftsman whose intaglio work for Brussels was notably finer than much of what the National Bank's in-house press produced in surrounding decades.

Henri Hendrickx handled the design. Pick 54 is genuinely scarce in any grade — low surviving populations suggest most examples were retired and pulped well before the early twentieth century redemption cycles.