Catalog
500 Korún
| Issuer | Slovenský štát (Slovak State) |
|---|---|
| Year | 1939 |
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| Value | Log in to see details |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Printer | American Bank Note Company, New York, United States |
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| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | The reverse is printed in deep rose-red on a fine guilloche background. A large central intaglio vignette presents an allegorical female head in profile facing left, laurel-wreathed, set within an oval frame; to her left a recumbent lion rests beside an open book, and to her right a putto or child figure appears in a landscape setting. The denomination '500' is repeated in each corner, and a multilingual denomination strip below the central vignette reads in Russian, German, and Hungarian. |
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| Protection type | Watermark |
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| Comments |
The Slovak State's 500 Korún of 1939 was printed by the American Bank Note Company in New York — a striking logistical detail given that Slovakia had declared independence from Czechoslovakia in March of that year under heavy German pressure. Commissioning a prestigious American security printer while simultaneously operating as a Nazi client state was not unusual for the period; several Axis-aligned governments continued doing so until US entry into the war made such arrangements impossible.
Pick #2 is notably scarcer than Pick #1 of the same series. The short window between Slovak independence and the eventual wartime disruption to transatlantic printing contracts kept total issued quantities low.