De Javasche Bank was the colonial central bank of the Dutch East Indies, and by 1938 it was printing high-denomination notes against a background of real institutional anxiety — Japanese expansionism was already reshaping regional trade, and the bank's management knew that occupation, if it came, would render its entire circulation moot. It did. After the Japanese invasion of 1942, Javasche Bank notes were withdrawn and replaced by Japanese military currency.
Joh. Enschedé en Zonen had printed for the bank for decades, and their intaglio work on this denomination is meticulous. Notes from the 1938 series that survived the occupation period did so largely outside the Indies — held by Dutch nationals who had repatriated, or in institutional reserves in the Netherlands.
De Javasche Bank was the colonial central bank of the Dutch East Indies, and by 1938 it was printing high-denomination notes against a background of real institutional anxiety — Japanese expansionism was already reshaping regional trade, and the bank's management knew that occupation, if it came, would render its entire circulation moot. It did. After the Japanese invasion of 1942, Javasche Bank notes were withdrawn and replaced by Japanese military currency.
Joh. Enschedé en Zonen had printed for the bank for decades, and their intaglio work on this denomination is meticulous. Notes from the 1938 series that survived the occupation period did so largely outside the Indies — held by Dutch nationals who had repatriated, or in institutional reserves in the Netherlands.