10000 Dollars

Singapore's Orchid series, of which this is the highest denomination, was issued during a period when the currency board structure was still intact — the Monetary Authority of Singapore had been established in 1971, but the Board of Commissioners of Currency retained its note-issuing function until the two were finally merged in 2002. A $10,000 note in 1973 represented an extraordinary sum in a country whose per capita GDP was still under $2,000 USD, placing this squarely in the realm of interbank settlement rather than retail commerce.

Thomas De La Rue's intaglio work on this series is among the finer examples of their Singapore output before local printing arrangements developed.