Catalog
500 Litu
| Issuer | Lietuvos Bankas (Bank of Lithuania) |
|---|---|
| Year | 2000 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Printer | Giesecke+Devrient (Giesecke & Devrient), Leipzig, Germany (1852-date) |
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| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Brown and rose tones over a multicolour guilloche underprint. The Bell of Freedom vignette is positioned at upper right, set against a panoramic landscape background. Denomination numerals and bank name inscriptions appear in intaglio lettering. |
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| Protection type | Log in to see details |
| Protection description | Vincas Kudirka portrait; embedded security thread running vertically through the note |
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| Comments |
The 500 Litu was the highest denomination in circulation during Lithuania's litas period, and the 2000 issue came at a peculiar moment — the country was already deep in the process of aligning its economy toward EU accession, with the litas pegged to the euro at a fixed rate from 2002. A note of this face value had real purchasing weight; this wasn't emergency-issue paper printed to cope with inflation but a functioning high-denomination instrument in a stable monetary environment.
Giesecke & Devrient in Leipzig had handled Lithuanian banknote production across multiple series. The security specification here is relatively lean for the denomination — watermark and thread without more elaborate features that would appear in later European issues of comparable value.