50 Namibia Dollars

Namibia's first banknote series, of which this is part, appeared just three years after independence from South African administration — the new currency replacing the South African Rand at par in 1993. The Bank of Namibia had only been formally established in 1990, making this among the earliest instruments it issued under its own authority.

Karlsson served as the Bank's inaugural Governor, which gives his signature on this series a particular weight: these notes were, in the most literal sense, the first assertions of a functioning central bank.