1000 Drachmai

Greece's occupation-era currency collapsed under hyperinflation so severe that by late 1944 a single gold sovereign cost billions of drachmai. This note, though dated 1941, was printed in April 1945 — well after liberation — specifically because the immediate postwar monetary system had not yet stabilized and wartime denominations were still being pressed into service while a proper reform was negotiated.

The 1944 currency reform eventually replaced these at a rate of 50 billion old drachmai to one new drachma, one of the most extreme redenominations of the twentieth century.