Depicts an Alpine curly-haired herdsman, wearing a hooded shirt, surrounded by the state name in Latin (Swiss Confederation). Engraver's name below.

The herdsman is often assimilated to William Tell, but it is not correct. The first drafts of the coin designer, Paul Burkhard, clearly show this.

INCT. is the abbreviation of "incidit" from the Latin verb "incidere", meaning "engraved by".

The name Helvetica is a derivation of the ethnonym Helvetii, the name of the Gaulish tribe inhabiting the Swiss Plateau prior to the Roman conquest.

The Swiss escutcheon with flower wreaths, facial value above, date and mintmark (if any) below.

The white cross has been used as the field sign (attached to the clothing of combattants and to the cantonal war flags in the form of strips of linen) of the Old Swiss Confederacy since its formation in the late 13th or early 14th century. Its symbolism was described by the Swiss Federal Council in 1889 as representing "at the same the Christian cross symbol and the field sign of the Old Confederacy". The federal coat of arms was defined in 1815 for the Restored Confederacy as the white-on-red Swiss cross in a heraldic shield. The white cross is known as the Swiss cross. Its arms are equilateral, and their ratio of length to width is 7:6.

The mintmark "B" stands for Bern (= Federal Mint, Swissmint). Swiss circulation coins were struck without a mintmark between 1970 and 1985. The mintmark "B" was abandoned from 1970 onwards, and was reintroduced in 1986.

Type I: ⋆⋆⋆ DOMINUS | PROVIDEBIT | ⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆
Type II: ⋆⋆⋆ DOMINUS | ⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆ | PROVIDEBIT

DOMINUS PROVIDEBIT (The Lord will provide, Genesis 22, 8) is religious expressions (mottos) were very popular from the Middle Ages and are still found on many coins, usually as a circumscription.

In the case of the raised edge inscription (lettering and stars in relief), the position is always the same, i.e. seen from the image side, it commences at the opening in the herdsman's shirt, runs clockwise and is divided into three segments. In the case of the 5-franc coin with the incuse (recessed) edge inscription (years 1985 to 1993), the position is arbitrary, as it was applied in a separate procedure before the coins were struck.