5000 Vatu

Thomas De La Rue printed the entire first substantive series for Vanuatu after the country's 1980 independence from its unusual Anglo-French Condominium arrangement — a joint colonial administration that had maintained two parallel currencies, two court systems, and two police forces simultaneously. The vatu replaced both the New Hebrides franc and the Australian dollar in use by different parts of the population.

P#15 ran across nearly two decades of consecutive dating with minimal design revision, which is characteristic of De La Rue contracts with smaller Pacific island central banks during this period. The watermark remains the sole security provision — modest even by the standards of its first issue year.