500 Franken

The Spar- & Leih-Cassa des Kantons Luzern was a cantonal savings and lending institution, not a central bank — its note-issuing activity placed it among the dozens of Swiss cantonal and private banks whose circulation rights were steadily curtailed following the Federal Banking Act of 1881 and ultimately terminated with the creation of the Swiss National Bank in 1907. By the time federal consolidation was complete, surviving notes from smaller cantonal issuers had largely been redeemed and pulped, which accounts for the genuine scarcity of high-denomination examples like this one.

Bradbury, Wilkinson & Co. handled the printing from their London works — a common arrangement for Swiss provincial issuers who lacked access to domestic security printers of comparable technical capability at the time.