Bradbury Wilkinson printed the entire first generation of Central Bank of Cyprus notes from their New Malden works, and this 500 Mils sits near the end of that relationship — the firm was acquired by American Banknote Corporation in 1990 and the Bradbury Wilkinson name effectively ceased. Cyprus itself dropped the mil entirely when it decimalized fully to a cent-based system in 1983, making this one of the final issues of a subunit denomination that dated back to the Ottoman-era piastre calculations underpinning British colonial coinage.
The watermark is the sole security feature — no thread, no fluorescent ink. Modest by any standard of the period.
Bradbury Wilkinson printed the entire first generation of Central Bank of Cyprus notes from their New Malden works, and this 500 Mils sits near the end of that relationship — the firm was acquired by American Banknote Corporation in 1990 and the Bradbury Wilkinson name effectively ceased. Cyprus itself dropped the mil entirely when it decimalized fully to a cent-based system in 1983, making this one of the final issues of a subunit denomination that dated back to the Ottoman-era piastre calculations underpinning British colonial coinage.
The watermark is the sole security feature — no thread, no fluorescent ink. Modest by any standard of the period.