50 Perpera

Montenegro's Main State Treasury issued this note in 1914 under conditions of acute military pressure — the country had barely recovered from the Balkan Wars when the First World War began, and paper currency became a financial improvisation rather than a planned monetary instrument. Printing at Cetinje, the royal capital, meant minimal industrial infrastructure and no access to specialist security printers.

The control stamp substitutes for the engraved security features that a major printing house would have provided. It is a telling sign of how quickly this currency was put together.