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Want a 100 billion dollar bill? Well it’s yours for $199, $49.72, or as low as $25 if you act fast. The only problem – these Zimbabwean banknotes can’t even buy a loaf of bread, and are only worth about $1 US dollar each.
But hyper-inflated bills aren’t even the most outrageous banknotes in history. The Economist lists the highest-denomination national banknotes since 1900. They are:
1,000,000,000,000,000,000 Hungary Pengo, 1946
100,000,000,000,000 Germany Papiermark, 1923
500,000,000,000 Former Yugoslavia Dinar, 1993
100,000,000,000 Zimbabwe Dollar, 2008
100,000,000,000 Greece Drachma, 1944
50,000,000 Poland Marka, 1923
It’s funny that if you stare at the first few lines of digits for a while, suddenly a 50,000,000 Marka bill almost makes sense! Pictured below are the Pengo and the Drachma mentioned above.


Cool, thanks! I’m an accountant, so I geek out about anything relating to currency!
posted by Dawn on 8-3-2008 at 5:43 am