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🎼🎼Summertime, and the living is easy..🎼🎼
SYRACUSIAN
Posts: 6,448 ✭✭✭✭
A few world notes from my collection. Hoping you’re having a great summer “y’all” 
This same note, before last, in PCGS 66 PPQ, became the one below, PMG 66 epq,
(minus 3 zeroes) after the 1953 economic reform in Greece,
that tied up the drachma to the USD, at a 15:1 ratio, and then 30:1 overnight,
to stop funds from leaving Greece, a financial policy that worked for 20 years
always with the steady ratio from 1953, until the 73-74 oil crisis.
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Jason, oh my dear Jason,why did you screw this up so bad? 
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Best regards from a sunny and very hot Athenian morning!
D
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Comments
Great images of some terrific notes
Experience the World through Numismatics...it's more than you can imagine.
Thanks ‘ kat.
The third note before the last (and it’s reverse fourth before last) is Pick 52,] a truly beautiful note, hélas practically always encountered in F-VF or in gem specimens, not worth much.
The same note (Pick 52) in true unc, and in particular a PMG 64 no epq had realized 4000 euros plus 22% and one person managed to hoard the few unc he found (no more than half a dozen). But who wants to spend 4-5000 if god forbid the example bought and submitted grades 65 epq.
So most people buy the common specimen Pick 52s at $400-$500 in 65-66 epq.
A wonderful note by ABNC with a LONG run from 1909-1918 with various combinations of signatures for the specialists.
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The 7th note before last, the English military pound with GREECE overprints is excessively rare: only 50 notes were printed and this is one of them, a genuine, immediately recognized from its serial number and it is not mine, I just « borrowed » the picture as I’ve never really owned one. It’s a €10000-€12000 note especially in AU53, (that could have graded higher in PMG, we all know how Jason was strict with world notes) and nice like this .
My personal favorite pre WW2 series, after the creation of the Bank of Greece in 1927, (up until that moment the issuing banks were the National Bank of Greece and for newly liberated territories in the Balkan wars etc was the Ionian and the Epiro-thessaly bank)
is the (5 and 6 images from last) ,French printed and designed 1935 of 50, 100 and 1000 drs, which is a series I have in Pcgs currency 67 PPQ, but I do not have the images here, so I’ve posted doubles and triples that I eventually sold, albeit not all of them. There are still lots of them, but the majority has been washed and pressed so it’s tougher than one might think to locate superb gem new examples, especially the 1000 that is huge.
The 1000 in Pcgs 66 PPQ was recently sold to a friend .....
who tried to crossgrade his own PK 105 note in PCGS gold shield (or banknote grading back then) 68 opq (!) only to see it downgraded to 58 ppq.... Jason is a complicated human being.
A few more of my doubles for the complete set. A raw set, with no concerns for its grade, will set you back €150 for the three, and these are 3 really nice notes. But then again, I like French notes and notes from French colonies .
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This ultra rarity appeared for sale at Stack’s. With 3 weeks to go and at $8000 current bid, the note has been withdrawn after an offer of an incognito buyer around €200000...
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Beautiful series of 1955 notes...probably my favorite post war series, great designs and popping color. Love my Greece notes... and those two drachma 1885 issues, not easy to get in such nice condition...
You seem to know the countries’ notes well. Indeed, the 55-56 series is undoubtedly one of the prettiest series ever, and they were printed in Athens too. Most notes, virtually all except the 1956 1000 drs (worth 3.3 gold sovereigns,, a very large note in a series that the lowest denomination was 10), are the same size with the USD ,as an artistic way to express this new effort for growth and its ties to the USD (if not the Marshal plan).
And the fractionals from 1885 and overprinted in 1917 again, are indeed rare as well. Both came from Lyn wKnight, the overprinted variety in a PMG64 holder. Extremely rare in high quality, but Ithink I got lucky, as Knight is not necessarily the auction that the majority follows.
There are so many auctions nowadays, from Australia in summer to anywhere in Europe and the US the rest of the time, that with a little bit of luck, one can score a nice overlooked bargain or two..
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Greece was my first foreign collection , the note that got me started was, again, the 55-56 series, the Alexander note. It is Great in many ways... best part of Greek notes is the integration of fabulous cultural history into the note designs. I mean it has freaking Hercules on the front and Alexander at the battle of Issus on the back man...
To be honest, I could have used a bit less Stavros though on their designs...
The battle of Issos on the back. I cannot disagree and coincidentally, when I started collecting Greek banknotes, it was my first purchase too.
Stavros was the owner of the National Bank of Greece who had the issuing rights from the 1840s to 1927, when the Bank of Greece was created. The first five years, 1927-1932, they used previous National Bank editions, overprinted Bank of Greece, but in 1932 they presented their first new designs.
The issuing right of the National Bank made it the largest and richest bank of the Balkans until it was taken away approx. 90 years after they got it. And it was essentially exclusive, even though they were in competition with three smaller banks, Ionian Bank who issued notes for the newly acquired Ionian islands from Britain, the bank of Crete who issued two notes for Crete till its annexation to Greece and Epiro-Thessaly bank for the new northern territories of an ever expanding Greece during the 19th century and the culmination in the beginning of the 20th, to accomplish the old dream of Greece of 3 continents and 5 seas. That did not work out but Greece had already tripled its size by the end of WW1 and by the time the new borders with Bulgaria and with Turkey were drawn, the National Bank took over the entire issuing rights, until the moment that this right was given to the Bank of Greece, who was free from Stavros’ portrait and started a new path for Greek banknotes.
As a coin collector, I started collecting banknotes, to understand the modern history of my country. Coins are nice and shiny, but most of the transactions were done with banknotes. Both (coins and banknotes) are needed IMHO in order to illustrate the financial history of this country, my initial goal from my first steps as a collector, not counting the many deviations I took during 25 years.
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Those 1939 series are also beautiful and I think underappreciated...