500 Drachmai

The National Bank of Greece was only established in 1841 — the same year this note was issued — making this among the earliest output of the institution's entire existence. Greece itself had only been internationally recognized as an independent state since 1832, and the creation of a national bank with note-issuing privileges was a deliberate act of economic consolidation under King Otto's Bavarian-influenced administration.

Surviving examples from this first series are exceptionally rare. The bank's early note production was low-volume, and Greece's monetary infrastructure in the 1840s was fragile enough that paper instruments faced considerable public resistance from a population still oriented toward coin.