500 Thalers / Birr

The Bank of Ethiopia, established in 1931 as the first indigenous bank on the African continent, issued this series under Haile Selassie's direct patronage as part of a broader push to consolidate financial infrastructure ahead of what would prove to be a brief window of independence. Bradbury Wilkinson had long supplied high-security intaglio printing to colonial administrations across Africa, so contracting them was a practical choice — though in this case the client was an independent sovereign state, not a colonial office.

Italy's 1936 invasion effectively ended the Bank of Ethiopia's operational life. Notes of the higher denominations, including this 500 Birr, had extremely limited practical circulation given the economic scale of the country at the time, and surviving examples in any condition are genuinely uncommon.