500 Ouguiya

Giesecke & Devrient produced this series across a remarkably long seventeen-year span without a redesign — unusual discipline for a central bank that had only been issuing its own currency since 1973, when Mauritania left the West African CFA franc zone and introduced the ouguiya. The longevity of the P#6 type likely reflects both budgetary conservatism and the relatively low volumes required for a sparsely populated country.

Watermark-only security was already minimal by the standards of the period. By the mid-1990s, when this type was finally retired, comparable denominations across the region carried security threads as standard.