5 Gulden

De Javasche Bank's 1939 five gulden was printed in Haarlem less than a year before Germany occupied the Netherlands in May 1940 — a fact that immediately complicated the colonial banking relationship between the Batavia head office and its European printer. Enschedé, long the bank's trusted security printer, would become inaccessible for the duration of the war, forcing the DEI administration to seek alternative printing arrangements for subsequent issues.

Notes from this 1939 series that remained in the Netherlands at the time of occupation were vulnerable to seizure. Those that reached the Dutch East Indies before the German advance represent the bulk of surviving circulated examples.