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The Banque de Syrie et du Grand-Liban was a French-chartered commercial bank operating under Mandate authority — not a central bank in any modern sense, but the sole note-issuing institution for both Syria and Greater Lebanon from 1919 onward. By 1935, the political relationship between Paris and the Levantine mandates was under increasing strain, with Syrian nationalist pressure mounting against the mandate structure itself.

Imprimerie Chaix was a respected Parisian commercial printer with deep roots in railway timetables and illustrated periodicals — an unusual pedigree for a currency printer, and a reminder that the French mandate authorities were not routing this work through the Banque de France's more specialized facilities.

Pick 12 is among the scarcer issues of the series; the 1935 date falls late in the bank's interwar run before wartime disruptions rewrote the region's monetary arrangements entirely.