500 Korún Provisional Note

When Czechoslovakia dissolved on 1 January 1993, both successor states faced an immediate practical problem: neither had new banknotes ready. Slovakia's solution for the 500 Korún denomination was to take existing Czechoslovak 500 Kčs notes — printed years earlier in Prague by Státní Tiskárna Cenin — and apply an adhesive stamp bearing the Slovak coat of arms, converting them overnight into legal tender of a country that had existed for days. The stamp itself became the entire act of monetary separation.

Stamped notes were vulnerable to counterfeiting from the outset, and the provisional series was withdrawn relatively quickly once purpose-designed Slovak issues entered circulation. Unstamped or double-stamped examples are known.