25 Drachmai

The National Bank of Greece leaned heavily on Waterlow & Sons throughout the late nineteenth century, a relationship driven by cost and reliability rather than any particular design ambition. This series was produced during a period of acute fiscal stress: Greece had defaulted on its external debt in 1893 and by 1897 was fighting — and losing — a brief war with the Ottoman Empire, after which an International Financial Commission was imposed on Athens to supervise state revenues directly.

Paper quality in surviving examples from this issue tends to be brittle at the folds, a known characteristic of Waterlow's stock used for Greek issues of this period rather than a circulation problem specific to any individual note.