500 Francs 6th series

The sixth series was the last Swiss issue designed by a single creative team working in close collaboration with the SNB and Orell Füssli before production methodology changed substantially. Ernst and Ursula Hiestand, both trained graphic designers rather than traditional banknote engravers, brought a distinctly typographic sensibility to the series — unusual for the period and occasionally controversial among central bank conservatives who preferred engraved portraiture in the classical tradition.

The nine distinct signature combinations across this note's print run reflect genuine institutional turnover at the SNB over sixteen years, not clerical variation. Leutwiler departed the directorate in 1984, Languetin in 1988 — the signature sequence is a quiet index of Swiss monetary governance during the Bretton Woods aftermath and the transition to inflation-targeting policy.