100 Drachmai

The Ionian Bank was a British-chartered institution founded in 1839, originally serving the then-British protectorate of the Ionian Islands. By the time this note was issued, the islands had long since unified with Greece — 1864 — but the bank retained its right of private note issue in Greece, one of several such privileges it held under successive arrangements with the Greek government. That anomaly of a British bank circulating currency on Greek soil persisted well into the twentieth century.

Perkins, Bacon & Petch produced work of consistently high intaglio quality, and their plates for the Ionian Bank series were among the more technically accomplished private-issue printings of the period.