10 Korona

The Magyar Postatakarékpénztár issued this note during one of the most unstable months in Hungarian monetary history. Following the collapse of the Habsburg state, the new Hungarian government urgently needed low-denomination paper to replace the withdrawn Austro-Hungarian krone notes — the Postal Savings Bank, not the national bank, was pressed into service as the issuing authority precisely because the institutional framework for a proper central bank did not yet exist.

The series to which this note belongs was produced entirely within Budapest under severely constrained conditions in early 1919, the same year Hungary cycled through three governments — the democratic republic, the short-lived Soviet Republic, and finally the counterrevolutionary administration. Notes from this issue circulated under all three regimes.