1000 Francs

Issued in the immediate aftermath of occupation and wartime currency chaos, this note belongs to the first major postwar reissue cycle from the Banque Nationale. Belgium emerged from the war with a badly distorted money supply — German-imposed marks, occupation francs, and suppressed Belgian issues had all circulated simultaneously, and restoring confidence in the national currency required physically new, recognizable paper at the highest denominations first.

Both the designer and engraver were Belgian, which was not automatically guaranteed in this period — the prewar relationship with foreign security printers like Waterlow remained an option. That this was produced domestically in Brussels signals a deliberate postwar preference for national production capacity.