2 Pengő

By 1940, Hungary's wartime economic pressures were already beginning to strain the monetary system, but the 2 Pengő occupied an awkward middle denomination that never quite matched real purchasing power to circulation demand. The Pengő itself had been introduced in 1927 to replace the badly inflated Korona at a rate of 12,500 Korona to 1 Pengő — a stable foundation that the Second World War would systematically dismantle.

Printed entirely in-house at the Magyar Nemzeti Bank Jegynyomda, this note is one of the few interwar-era Hungarian issues designed and produced without recourse to a foreign security printer — a point of genuine technical interest given the quality of intaglio work Horváth and Moskó achieved domestically.