50 Livres

The Banque de Syrie et du Liban was a French-chartered private institution operating under the Mandate authorities, and by 1939 its position was becoming politically fraught. France's grip on the Levant was tightening in response to regional instability, and currency management was a direct instrument of that control. Bradbury Wilkinson's involvement reflects the Mandate-era pattern of routing high-value security printing through British firms even for French-administered territories — a commercial arrangement that outlasted the political tensions surrounding it.

The 50 Livres denomination circulated during one of the most volatile decades in the region's modern history, bridging the collapse of the Franco-Syrian Treaty and the outbreak of the Second World War. Notes from this issue are scarce in any grade.