Hungarian Great Inflation Notes (1945-46)

I have just received a few notes from Hungary to complete the set of their great inflation that happened in 1946. I'd like to show you a few of them, but first two remarks:

1. Large number naming

There are two conventions of naming large numbers. One is popular in continental Europe, the other in Great Britain and USA. The same words stand for different numbers there. Since the notes are Hungarian, they use the continental system. Here is a quick comparison of both of them.

• 10^6 - Million - Million The last common name
• 10^9 - Milliard - Billion
• 10^12 - Billion - Trillion
• 10^15 - Billiard - Quadrillion
• 10^18 - Trillion - Quintillion

And so on.

2. The Hungarian inflation

It started in 1945 and ended in June 1946 with replacing the old currency Pengo with a new one Forint. It was the world highest inflation doubling the prices in 13 hours at its peak (the second place is Zimbabwe with doubling prices in 25 hours), with the highest face value note ever printed: 10^20 (Zimbabwe: 10^14), and the total devaluation: 10^29 (Zimbabwe: 10^28).

And now - the selected notes:




10^4 (10 000), July 1945

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10^11 (100 000 000 000), April 1946

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10^15 (1 000 000 000 000 000), June 1946

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10^20 (100 000 000 000 000 000 000), June 1946