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| Issuer | Magyar Nemzeti Bank |
|---|---|
| Year | 1946 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | 1 000 000 Billions Pengos (1 000 000 B.‑ Pengő) |
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| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | EGYMILLIÓ B.-PENGŐ BUDAPEST, 1946 ÉVI JÚNIUS HÓ 3.-ÁN MAGYAR NEMZETI BANK FŐTANÁCSOS ELNÖK VEZÉRIGAZGATÓ A BANKJEGYHAMISÍTÁST A TÖRVÉNY BÜNTETI (Translation: One million billion Pengoes / Budapest, 3 June 1946 / Hungarian National Bank / Chief Councillor / President / Director General / Counterfeiting banknotes is punishable by law) |
| Reverse description | The reverse is dominated by a full-width dark brown intaglio vignette rendered after Géza Mészöly's painting "At the Shore of Lake Balaton", with tall trees in the foreground and figures alongside boats at the water's edge. An ornate vertical panel to the left incorporates the Hungarian coat of arms, while a corresponding panel to the right carries the inscription "EGY MILLIÓ". Repeating denomination text runs along both the upper and lower margins of the composition. |
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| Comments |
By the time this note entered circulation in mid-1946, Hungary's hyperinflation had already exceeded anything recorded in monetary history. The pengő was collapsing so rapidly that the National Bank printed denominations in the billions and trillions within weeks of this million-pengő issue — the B.-pengő unit itself, shorthand for billió-pengő (one trillion pengő), was introduced precisely because the existing numerical vocabulary had become unworkable for everyday transactions.
Helbing Ferenc and Géza Mészöly were both established figures in Hungarian graphic arts, but the quality of their work here was largely irrelevant — notes of this series circulated for days, not months, before losing all practical value.