5 Phoenix

The Phoenix was Greece's first national currency, introduced by Ioannis Kapodistrias in 1828 as the newly independent state sought to establish basic financial infrastructure after nearly four centuries of Ottoman rule. The National Bank Commission — a provisional body rather than a proper central bank — issued these notes against extremely limited reserves, and public confidence was fragile from the outset. Kapodistrias himself was assassinated in October 1831, the same year this note was issued, and the currency collapsed shortly afterward when the Bavarian regency abolished the Phoenix entirely in 1832, replacing it with the Drachma.

Survivors are extraordinarily rare. The short window of legitimate circulation, combined with active redemption and destruction under the new monetary regime, accounts for that scarcity.