Nepal's 500 Rupee denomination was substantial — the highest face value in circulation for most of the 1970s — issued under the authority of Nepal Rastra Bank, which had only been established in 1956 and was still building out its currency framework during this period. Thomas De La Rue handled the printing, as they did for the majority of Nepali notes through these decades, maintaining a near-continuous relationship with Kathmandu that stretched from the earliest Rastra Bank issues onward.
The watermark remains the sole security feature — modest by later standards, but consistent with De La Rue's approach for lower-volume, high-denomination issues where print runs were small enough that sophisticated counterfeiting was considered a limited risk.
Nepal's 500 Rupee denomination was substantial — the highest face value in circulation for most of the 1970s — issued under the authority of Nepal Rastra Bank, which had only been established in 1956 and was still building out its currency framework during this period. Thomas De La Rue handled the printing, as they did for the majority of Nepali notes through these decades, maintaining a near-continuous relationship with Kathmandu that stretched from the earliest Rastra Bank issues onward.
The watermark remains the sole security feature — modest by later standards, but consistent with De La Rue's approach for lower-volume, high-denomination issues where print runs were small enough that sophisticated counterfeiting was considered a limited risk.