20 Pengő

The 1938 20 Pengő was issued into an economy already under severe strain from Hungary's rearmament program and its deepening alignment with Nazi Germany — the same year Hungary accepted the First Vienna Award, which returned parts of Czechoslovakia. The Pengő itself had been a reasonably stable currency since its introduction in 1927, a sharp contrast to the catastrophic hyperinflation of the korona years, and the Magyar Nemzeti Bank was still defending that reputation in 1938.

P#105 was printed by the bank's own Budapest press. Notes from this series are common in circulated grades; uncirculated survivors are less so, as most saw genuine use before wartime disruptions rendered the currency increasingly worthless through the early 1940s.