500 Francs 2nd series, type 1

Eugène Burnand was primarily a painter — a Vaudois artist known for large-scale religious and peasant scenes — an unusual choice to design a high-denomination banknote, and his involvement here reflects the SNB's early determination to treat its inaugural series as a cultural statement rather than a purely technical exercise. Waterlow & Sons executed the engraving in London; the credited engraver "Drummond" was a house engraver at the firm.

With three distinct date series across 1910, 1914, and 1917, and multiple signature combinations per date, the number of distinct varieties is considerable. The 1917 dates coincide with wartime currency pressure in Switzerland, when hoarding of coin and nervous demand for high-denomination notes both spiked.