Description and research notes
Archival specimen of the 1970 100 Francs with the printer’s blue registration grid still visible—a genuine working-press artifact from De La Rue’s London works. The grid was used to verify alignment and spacing before committing to steel; every visible intersection documents the physical geometry behind the finished currency. PMG 65 EPQ Gem Uncirculated.
Issued under the BLEU union, this 1970 design became the technical ancestor of the unissued 1982 project. The meticulous De La Rue layout set the visual grammar—portraits framed in symmetrical guilloches, open margins for machine cutting—that Bradbury Wilkinson later echoed when Luxembourg prepared its independent emergency notes. Gridline specimens were strictly internal tools, almost never preserved; only a few surfaced after the archives were dismantled. Within this set they bridge two decades of design continuity, showing how precision London pre-press evolved into the contingency intaglio of 1982.