Catalog
500 Pounds
| Issuer | Central Bank of Syria |
|---|---|
| Year | 1976-1992 |
| Type | Standard circulation banknote |
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| Obverse description | Central vignette of an Ugaritic winged deity with horned headdress, flanked by two smaller figures, set against a radiating guilloche underprint with multicolour rosettes. A sculpted head from the ruins of the Kingdom of Ugarit occupies an intaglio vignette at right, framed by an ornate border with standing human figures at each corner. The bank name in Arabic appears at top, with the denomination in Arabic script at centre-left, and two manuscript signatures with their Arabic title inscriptions flanking the central motif. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse lettering | CENTRAL BANK OF SYRIA FIVE HUNDRED SYRIAN POUNDS 1992 |
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| Comments |
Enschedé printed this series across a remarkably long window — sixteen years — during which Syria weathered the post-1973 oil boom, deep involvement in the Lebanese Civil War, and the severe economic dislocations of the 1980s that pushed the black-market exchange rate to roughly ten times the official peg. That gap between official and street value meant high-denomination notes like this one moved through informal channels far more than through the banking system proper.
The P#105 watermark is the sole mechanical security feature, modest by Enschedé's own standards for the period.