500 Markkaa

Finland's central bank has printed its own notes since the nineteenth century, making it one of the few institutions in Europe to have maintained in-house production nearly without interruption. The P#96 500 Markkaa belongs to the postwar period when the markka was still recovering from the severe inflation triggered by war reparations paid to the Soviet Union — Finland delivered goods worth roughly $300 million USD between 1944 and 1952, a process that restructured Finnish industry but gutted currency stability.

By 1956 the markka had been redenominated once and would be again in 1963, when 100 old markka became 1 new markka, effectively making this 500 Markkaa note equivalent to just 5 uusien markkojen upon conversion.