Catalog
50 Drachmai
| Issuer | National Bank of Greece |
|---|---|
| Year | 1926 |
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| Printer | Bradbury Wilkinson and Company, United Kingdom (1856-1990) |
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| Obverse description | Portrait vignette of Georgios Stavros, founder of the National Bank of Greece, at centre, with a red overprint reading «ΝΕΟΝ 1926» applied to the face of the note. Guilloche underprint panels flank the central vignette, with the denomination and bank inscriptions in Greek lettering. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse lettering | ΕΘΝΙΚΗ ΤΡΑΠΕΖΑ ΤΗΣ ΕΛΛΑΔΟΣ ΕΚΔΟΣΙΣ ΠΕΜΠΤΗ 50 |
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| Comments |
The National Bank of Greece had been the country's sole issuer for decades, but 1926 was not a stable year for that arrangement — a military coup in June brought Pangalos to power, and monetary reform pressure was intensifying from the League of Nations, which would within a year compel the establishment of the Bank of Greece as a separate central bank. This note belongs to the last years of the old order.
Bradbury Wilkinson's intaglio work on Greek issues of this period is consistently fine, their New Malden facility handling a substantial volume of Southern European government contracts through the interwar years.