500 Thalers / Birr

The Bank of Abyssinia was not an Ethiopian institution in any meaningful sense — it was a concession granted in 1905 to the National Bank of Egypt, itself controlled by British interests, giving a foreign entity monopoly rights over Abyssinia's currency and public accounts for fifty years. Emperor Menelik II signed that agreement partly to fund railway construction, and partly because he had little alternative. The arrangement was deeply resented by successive governments, and Haile Selassie eventually bought out the concession entirely in 1931, replacing the bank with the Bank of Ethiopia.

Bradbury Wilkinson printed the series to a high standard, as was their practice with colonial and semi-colonial currency contracts of the period. At 500 Thalers, this is the highest denomination of the series — issued for commercial and interbank settlement rather than retail circulation, which accounts for the rarity of surviving examples in any grade.