100 Drachmai

The Bank of Crete was not a sovereign central bank but a privileged commercial institution, granted the right of note issue under the terms of the island's autonomous status following the 1897-98 Greco-Ottoman crisis. Crete's peculiar position — nominally still Ottoman, administered by the Great Powers, and governed locally by a High Commissioner — meant its banking arrangements were equally improvised. Bradbury, Wilkinson printed the notes in London to a quality that exceeded what the political situation on the ground probably warranted.

The series ran across nearly two decades because Crete's formal union with Greece in 1913 did not immediately trigger currency unification — circulating notes continued under the old issuing authority until absorption was administratively complete.