Catalog
See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration!
or register with email
Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!
50 Francs 4th series, reserve banknote
| Issuer | Swiss National Bank |
|---|---|
| Year | 1946 |
| Type | Non-circulating banknote |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Size | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Log in to see details |
| Printer | Log in to see details |
| Designer(s) | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Green intaglio on red and yellow guilloche underprint. An intaglio portrait vignette of a young woman's head is positioned at right, rendered in fine line engraving. The centre of the note carries the trilingual denomination inscriptions in German, French, and Italian, flanked by intricate guilloche medallions bearing the Swiss cross at left and the numeral 50 at lower left and lower right corners. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Green intaglio on pale underprint. The central vignette presents a detailed intaglio scene of a herdsman leading a large bull by a rope, set against an alpine mountain panorama in the background. The composition is framed by an elaborate guilloche border with the denomination numeral 50 repeated in each corner. |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Signature(s) | Log in to see details |
| Protection type | Log in to see details |
| Protection description | Log in to see details |
| Variants | Log in to see details |
| Comments |
The fourth series was prepared as a wartime contingency — printed and held in reserve but never released into circulation. Switzerland maintained these stockpiles throughout the 1940s as insurance against German invasion or occupation disrupting the primary note supply. The entire series was eventually destroyed without ever being officially issued, making survivors genuinely rare rather than artificially so.
Hans Erni, then still early in his career, was an unusual choice — he would later become one of Switzerland's most prominent graphic artists, but his involvement here predates that public profile. Karl Bickel's engraving work on the obverse is among the finer examples of Swiss intaglio craft from that period.