2 Drachmai

The National Bank of Greece turned to Bradbury Wilkinson repeatedly during the 1880s, a period when the Greek state was navigating serious fiscal pressure following the expenses of post-independence consolidation and ongoing territorial disputes. This 2 Drachmai note belongs to a series that predates the 1885 suspension of gold convertibility by just months — Greece formally suspended specie payments that year and would not restore them for decades.

Bradbury Wilkinson's intaglio work was among the most technically sophisticated available to smaller sovereign issuers at the time, which is precisely why Athens kept sending the work to London rather than developing domestic printing capacity.