500 Ekuele

The ekuele replaced the peseta guineana in 1975 following Equatorial Guinea's break from the Spanish monetary zone — a politically charged move under Francisco Macías Nguema, whose regime had by that point begun its slide into one of the most brutal dictatorships in African postcolonial history. Thomas De La Rue handled the printing, as they did for much of Macías-era currency, which creates the odd situation of a London security printer producing notes for a government actively isolating itself from the West.

The Banco Popular name is something of a fiction — no genuinely independent central banking infrastructure existed during this period.