Catalog
3 Markkaa
| Issuer | Bank of Finland |
|---|---|
| Year | 1864-1866 |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Size | 125 × 93 mm |
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| Obverse description | Light green on light yellow underprint with black letterpress text throughout. A Czarist imperial eagle is reversed out in white at top centre, flanked by the institution name FINLANDS BANK likewise reversed out in white across the centre of the note. Bilingual text is arranged with Swedish on the right and Finnish on the left, with Russian text below, the Finnish text having been revised with the removal of a word break in the third line. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Black on white. The numeral 3 appears in the centre within a circle, surrounded by a border running along the edges of the note. Text is arranged quadrilingually: Russian across the top and bottom, Swedish along the left side, and Finnish along the right side. |
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| Comments |
Finland in the 1860s was still a Grand Duchy under Russian imperial authority, and the Bank of Finland's note-issuing powers operated within tight constraints set by St. Petersburg. The 3 Markkaa denomination was part of the transitional series introduced after Finland's monetary reform of 1860, which replaced the ruble-based markka with a decimal system pegged to the French franc — a deliberate alignment with Western European monetary practice rather than Russian.
The "A" suffix in the Pick reference reflects a documented variety distinction within the 1864–1866 emission, though surviving examples from the entire short-run series are uncommon. The great famine of 1866–1868 severely disrupted the Finnish economy shortly after this issue closed.