500 Sucres

Obverse description	Log in to see details
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Reverse description	The reverse is printed in shades of blue and teal, centred on the Ecuadorian national coat of arms within a circular frame enclosed by elaborate guilloche scrollwork. The denomination numeral '500' appears in large figures at the lower right, with repeated numeral underprints distributed across the field, while the bank name is lettered across the top and the value inscription runs along the lower edge.
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Protection description	Portrait watermark visible when held to light; embedded security thread running vertically through the paper.
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Comments	Ecuador's 500 Sucre denomination had a rough run through the 1980s — the country was deep in an inflation spiral worsened by the 1982–83 debt crisis that swept Latin America, and higher-denomination notes like this one were being absorbed into everyday transactions faster than the central bank could plan for. By the end of the decade, 500 Sucres had effectively lost its status as a large note entirely. Thomas De La Rue's involvement placed this squarely in a long tradition of Ecuadorian notes printed in London, a relationship dating back decades. The security thread in this series is an early embedded type, predating the more sophisticated windowed threads De La Rue would introduce in the 1990s.