500 Francs 7th series, reserve banknote

The seventh series was designed in the early 1970s but held back for over a decade, released in stages from 1976 onward as a reserve issue — meaning the SNB printed and vaulted it well before any notes entered circulation. The 500-franc denomination appeared late in the series rollout. Roger and Elisabeth Pfund's design work for this series was commissioned partly in response to criticism that earlier Swiss notes were visually stale; the couple brought a more graphically self-conscious approach that divided opinion among the bank's conservative directors.

Pierre Schopfer's engraving on this denomination is among the more technically demanding in the series. Orell Füssli had printed Swiss banknotes continuously since the nineteenth century and handled the full seventh series production in Zurich.