20 000 Forint

The 20,000 forint was the highest denomination Hungary had issued in the post-communist period when it entered circulation in 1999, a reflection of the cumulative inflation damage the forint had absorbed through the early 1990s. Hungary avoided hyperinflation on the scale of some neighboring transition economies, but a 1995 austerity package — the Bokros Plan — was still working through the system when this note was designed.

Magyar Pénzjegynyomda has printed Hungarian currency continuously since 1925, one of relatively few central European countries to have maintained domestic banknote production through the entire communist period and beyond. Vagyóczky handling both design and obverse engraving on a single issue is worth noting — that kind of unified authorship over a note's primary face is not common in modern production.