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500 Shillings
| Issuer | Bank of Tanzania |
|---|---|
| Year | 2003 |
| Type | Standard circulation banknote |
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| Obverse description | A front-facing Cape buffalo in intaglio vignette occupies the right portion of the note, set against a savannah landscape with acacia trees rendered in the underprint. The national arms appear at upper left centre, flanked by two manuscript signatures above their respective title designations, with a colour-shifting numeral panel below. The denomination numeral '500' is repeated in the lower corners, with guilloche patterned underprint in green and ochre tones across the field. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | BENKI KUU YA TANZANIA FEDHA HALALI KWA MALIPO YA SHILINGI MIA TANO UHURU NA UMOJA SHILINGI MIA TANO 500 (Translation: Central Bank of Tanzania Legal tender for five hundred shillings Freedom and unity Five hundred shillings) |
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| Comments |
The P#35 500 Shillings replaced an earlier series that had grown notoriously easy to counterfeit, and Giesecke & Devrient's involvement was precisely for that reason — the Leipzig firm brought more disciplined security specification than the previous contract allowed. Tanzania's shilling had been under sustained counterfeiting pressure through the late 1990s, particularly along the Kenyan border.
Watermark-only security reads as minimal by the standards of the period, but the Bank of Tanzania was operating under tight issuance budgets. The 2003 series was a transitional solution, not a long-term answer — a more fully secured replacement series followed within a few years.