5000 Lire Colombo - 1st type

The 5000 Lire denomination was substantial in everyday Italian life during the 1960s — roughly equivalent to a day's industrial wage when the series first appeared. Italy's postwar economic boom, the so-called miracolo economico, was already beginning to plateau by the time the final signature variant was authorized in January 1970, and inflationary pressure would eventually push the Banca d'Italia toward higher denominations entirely.

Three distinct signature combinations across six years make date-specific attribution straightforward, with the Carli/Ripa pairing of September 1964 being the earliest and typically the least common in high grades. Mario Baiardi's intaglio work on the obverse is among the finer examples of postwar Italian banknote engraving.