The 2020 fifty birr literally illustrates the programme the National Bank of Ethiopia built into the new series. According to the bank, the new notes reflect the country’s natural and historical features and its plans for the future, industrialisation and modern agriculture. The front shows a tractor ploughing a field against a lion’s head and a map of the country, and the back an industrial plant with three chimneys.

The National Bank of Ethiopia put the new series into circulation on 14 September 2020. The currency change was announced by the Prime Minister’s office: the authorities sought to bring back into the banks cash circulating outside the financial system and to strike at corruption and contraband.

The previous fifty birr showed a ploughman and a castle in Gondar; the new note trades the past for the future. Against the light a wide security thread appears, surfacing on the front through several windows. The notes are dated 2012 in the Ethiopian calendar, which corresponds to 2020.

For an Ethiopia collection this is the denomination that expresses the idea of the 2020 series most vividly, and in a set on machinery and industry on banknotes it puts a tractor and a factory on one note. UNC condition means the note has never circulated: no folds, no wear, no soiling, even corners — just as it left the press.

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