100 Drachmai

Greece's late nineteenth-century finances were in chronic disorder — the country had defaulted on foreign debt in 1893 and was operating under sustained fiscal pressure throughout this period. The National Bank of Greece held a printing monopoly and a de facto lending stranglehold over the state, which gave its notes a peculiar dual status: nominally convertible, but practically circulating as forced currency during repeated suspension periods.

P#45 is among the larger-denomination notes of the series and correspondingly rare in any grade. High-denomination Drachmai notes from this era were frequently retained as store-of-value instruments rather than cycled through trade, yet convertibility suspensions meant redemption was often deferred or effectively denied.

The 1893 default came just one year after this series began circulating.