1.000 Korun

The 1951 Czechoslovak 1,000 Korun was issued at a politically charged moment: just two years after the Communist coup of February 1948 and in the immediate wake of the brutal 1953 monetary reform, which wiped out private savings by exchanging old koruny for new ones at punitive rates — up to 50:1 for amounts above a threshold. Notes of this denomination bore the heaviest psychological weight of that reform, as they represented the largest individual loss for anyone holding cash outside a state savings account.

Karel Svolinský was a genuine Czech artist of standing, known for his postage stamp work, which gives this note an unusually fine engraved quality by Eastern Bloc standards of the period.