Catalog
50 Franken
| Issuer | Zürcher Kantonalbank |
|---|---|
| Year | 1870 |
| Type | Standard circulation banknote |
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| Obverse description | Green-tinted note with an intricate guilloche underprint across the entire field. Two oval portrait vignettes are positioned at the left and right margins, each enclosing a classical female bust in profile. The central area bears the issuer's name in Gothic script above the denomination 'Fünfzig Franken.' in bold blackletter, with the place and date 'Zürich, den 1. Januar 1874.' inscribed below. The numeral '50' appears in the upper corners, and a heraldic vignette with the Zürich coat of arms is visible at the top centre. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Die Zürcher Kantonalbank zahlt dem Ueberbringer Fünfzig Franken. Zürich, den 1. Januar 1874. Serie T. No 4439 |
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| Comments |
The Zürcher Kantonalbank was established by cantonal law in 1870, making this 50 Franken note a first-year issue from an institution that was itself brand new. Swiss cantonal banks operated as state-guaranteed entities, and Zürich's version was among the most aggressively capitalized at launch — the canton's industrial economy demanded serious liquidity infrastructure, not symbolic gestures.
Printed locally in Zürich rather than farmed out to the major European security printers, which was the more common route for Swiss cantonal notes of this period. Whether that reflects civic pride or practical urgency is an open question, but locally printed Swiss cantonal issues from the 1870s are considerably harder to locate than contemporaneous De La Rue or Bradbury Wilkinson productions.