50 Drachmai

Greece's postwar monetary situation was extreme — a wartime hyperinflation so severe that by late 1944 a single gold sovereign exchanged for billions of drachmai. The 1953 redenomination cut one thousand old drachmai to one new drachma, and this 1955 note belongs to the first stable series issued under that reformed currency. The state printing works at Holargos, established in 1947, had by this point taken over production that earlier required foreign contracts with houses like Bradbury Wilkinson.

Koroyiannakis designed the series, one of the few Greek-designed banknote issues of the period produced entirely domestically.