100 Markkaa

The P#97 100 Markkaa belongs to a period when Finland was still navigating postwar reparations to the Soviet Union — a burden that consumed roughly a quarter of national industrial output through 1952 and left the Bank of Finland managing recurring inflationary pressure well into the late 1950s. Printing domestically was both a practical and political choice; the Security Printing House had been producing notes in-house since the 1920s, and reliance on foreign printers had long been viewed with institutional suspicion.

The watermark is the sole security feature, modest even by the standards of the time. A full redenomination followed in 1963, when 100 old markkaa became 1 new markka, rendering this series obsolete within a few years of issue.