10 Penni

Estonia's first independent currency issues were produced under considerable constraint — the country had declared independence in February 1918 and spent much of 1919 fighting simultaneously against Bolshevik and Baltic German forces. These small-denomination penni notes were a stopgap, printed domestically while the fledgling government struggled to establish basic administrative infrastructure, let alone a functioning central bank.

The Estonian mark series of which this is a part was never intended as a long-term monetary solution. Rampant inflation through the early 1920s rendered low denominations like this one functionally worthless well before formal currency reform arrived with the kroon in 1928.