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100 000 000 Dollars Bearer Cheque
| Issuer | Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe |
|---|---|
| Year | 2008 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Printer | Fidelity Printers and Refiners, Harare |
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| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | The reverse carries a central oval vignette in green intaglio-style print, portraying two women engaged in traditional grain pounding with mortars and pestles, set before thatched huts and a cultivated field receding into a distant hillside. The denomination '100 000 000' is printed in dark green at the upper left and lower right corners against a salmon-pink guilloche background with a wave-pattern border element at the left margin. |
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| Signature(s) | Dr. Gideon Gono (Sig.8) |
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| Comments |
By mid-2008, Zimbabwe's month-on-month inflation had exceeded 11,000,000%, and the Reserve Bank had lost the capacity to issue notes fast enough to be useful. The "bearer cheque" format — technically a negotiable instrument rather than a banknote — was a legal workaround that allowed Fidelity Printers to push denominations into the hundreds of millions without formally restructuring the currency. It bought weeks, not months.
This 100,000,000-dollar instrument was obsolete almost immediately upon issue. The August 2008 redenomination slashed ten zeros from the currency, rendering the entire bearer cheque series worthless overnight.