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1000 Dracme
| Issuer | Cassa Mediterranea di Credito per la Grecia |
|---|---|
| Year | 1941 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | 1000 Drachmai |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Black intaglio on yellow underprint. At left, a vignette of the head of David after Michelangelo is set within an ornate decorative frame; the denomination in word form is centred, while a watermark window occupies a matching decorative frame at right. Bilingual text in Italian and Greek throughout identifies the issuing authority and the legal tender obligation. |
|---|---|
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| Protection type | Watermark |
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| Comments |
The Cassa Mediterranea di Credito per la Grecia was not a Greek institution — it was an Italian occupation authority, established in 1941 to administer currency in Axis-controlled Greece. Notes issued under its name circulated alongside, and effectively displaced, the Bank of Greece's own emissions during the occupation. The distinction mattered: Cassa notes were treated as a mechanism for extracting resources from the Greek economy to fund Italian military operations, contributing directly to the hyperinflationary collapse that killed an estimated 100,000 Greeks in the winter famine of 1941–42.
The Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato had printed Italian state documents for over a decade by the time this note was produced. A Roman press printing occupation scrip for a country its government was systematically starving.