Catalog
1 Markka
| Issuer | Bank of Finland |
|---|---|
| Year | 1867 |
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| Size | 125 × 95 mm |
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| Obverse description | Pink on light blue underprint. A black Imperial Czarist double-headed eagle occupies the top centre, flanked by bilingual text in Swedish (right) and Finnish (left), with Russian text below. The issuer name FINLANDS BANK is rendered in large letters reversed out in white against a black central band, with additional black letterpress text filling the note. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Tätä seteliä vastaan maksaa Suomenmaan Pankki anomuksen päälle YHDEN markan hopeassa (Translation: Against this banknote, the Bank of Finland will pay, on request, ONE mark in silver) |
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| Comments |
Finland in 1867 was not yet an independent state — it was an autonomous Grand Duchy under Russian imperial rule, and the Bank of Finland issued currency under that arrangement. The 1 Markka of that year belongs to the earliest phase of Finland's own monetary system, the markka having been introduced in 1860 to replace the Russian ruble as the local unit of account, a deliberate move by Finnish authorities to assert administrative distance from St. Petersburg.
1867 was also the year of Finland's catastrophic famine — the worst in its recorded history — which killed roughly 15% of the rural population. Notes from this issue that survived did so largely outside active commerce.