Greece 9 Pcs Set 1964-1996 Circulated FVF Fine to Very Fine

Nine banknotes. Thirty-two years of Greek history. From the Nymph Arethusa of 1964 to the revolutionary poet Rigas Feraios of 1996, this set spans the full arc of the modern Greek drachma — from the reign of King Constantine II through the military junta, the restoration of democracy, and the final years before Greece adopted the euro. Every note tells a story. Together, they tell Greece’s.

What’s in the Set

• P-195 — 50 Drachmai 1964: Arethusa, the nymph who became a spring, at left; ancient Greek galley at right. Blue on multicolor. One of antiquity’s most dramatic transformation myths on an everyday note.
• P-196 — 100 Drachmai 1966/1967: Statue of Democritus — the philosopher who invented atomic theory 2,400 years before it was proven — alongside the Demokritos nuclear research center. Red on multicolor. Reverse: Academy of Athens.
• P-197 — 500 Drachmai 1968: The Great Eleusinian Relief — Demeter, Triptolemos, and Persephone, the founding myth of agriculture — on the most mythologically rich note in the series. Olive on multicolor. Reverse: Minoan wild goat carving from Knossos.
• P-198 — 1000 Drachmai 1970: The Artemision Bronze — possibly the greatest surviving Greek sculpture, depicting Zeus hurling a thunderbolt — alongside the Theatre of Epidaurus. Brown on multicolor. Reverse: port of Hydra Island and a woman in local costume.
• P-199 — 50 Drachmai 1978: Poseidon, god of the sea, on the first note of the post-junta democratic era. Reverse: Laskarina Bouboulina commanding her fleet at the siege of Nafplio.
• P-200 — 100 Drachmai 1978: Athena of Piraeus and the University of Athens on the front; Adamantios Korais and the Arkadi Monastery on the back.
• P-201 — 500 Drachmes 1983: Ioannis Kapodistrias, first head of the modern Greek state, and the Corfu fortress — a note marking Greece’s democratic continuity.
• P-202 — 1000 Drachmes 1987: Apollo, god of light and prophecy, alongside the Discobolus and the Temple of Hera at Olympia — one of the most elegant notes of the late drachma era.
• P-204 — 200 Drachmes 1996: Rigas Feraios, the revolutionary poet and martyr executed by the Ottomans in 1798, whose writings helped ignite the Greek War of Independence.

Set Details

• Condition: Fine to Very Fine (FVF) — circulated with moderate to light wear, fully original
• Notes: 9 banknotes total
• Years spanned: 1964–1996
• Currency: Third modern drachma (1954–2001)
• Demonetized: Yes — all notes
• Composition: Paper
• Issuing entity: Bank of Greece (Τράπεζα της Ελλάδος)
• HS Code: 4907.00

Thirty-Two Years on Paper: The Story of the Modern Drachma

The nine notes in this set span one of the most turbulent and transformative periods in modern Greek history. The 1964–1970 series (P-195 through P-198) was issued under King Constantine II and then continued under the Regime of the Colonels — the military junta that seized power in April 1967 and ruled until 1974. The junta chose ancient gods and mythological scenes for its highest denominations: Zeus on the 1,000, the Eleusinian goddesses on the 500, Democritus on the 100. Ancient glory as a substitute for democratic legitimacy.

The 1978 series (P-199 and P-200) marks the restoration of democracy. Poseidon and Athena — the two divine rivals for Athens itself — appear on the first notes printed by the new republic. The 1983 and 1987 notes (P-201 and P-202) reflect Greece’s growing confidence as a European Union member (joined 1981). And the 1996 note (P-204) closes the set with Rigas Feraios as Greece prepared for its final decade with the drachma before adopting the euro in 2001.

The Drachma: One of the Oldest Currencies in History

The drachma is one of the oldest named currencies in the world, first used in ancient Greece around the 6th century BC. The word comes from the Greek drattesthai — “to grasp” — originally referring to a handful of metal rods used as currency. The modern drachma was reintroduced after Greek independence in 1832 and survived — through wars, occupations, hyperinflation, and dictatorships — until January 1, 2002, when Greece adopted the euro. The notes in this set represent the drachma’s final, most stable era: the Third Modern Drachma (1954–2001).

P-195: Arethusa — The Nymph Who Became a Spring

The figure on the 50 Drachmai 1964 is Arethusa, a naiad nymph from Greek mythology whose story is one of the most dramatic in the ancient canon. Pursued by the river god Alpheus across land and sea, Arethusa called upon the goddess Artemis for help. Artemis transformed her into an underground stream that flowed beneath the sea from the Peloponnese all the way to Sicily, where she emerged as the famous freshwater spring on the island of Ortygia in Syracuse. The spring still flows today. Ancient Greeks believed that objects thrown into the Alpheus River would resurface at Arethusa’s spring in Sicily — a myth so vivid that even Cicero and Pindar wrote of it. The reverse pairs her with a composition of an old and a modern shipyard — a deliberate statement that Greece’s identity is inseparable from the sea, across every era.

P-196: Democritus — The Man Who Invented the Atom 2,400 Years Early

Born around 460 BC in Abdera, Thrace, Democritus proposed one of the most radical ideas in the history of human thought: that all matter is composed of tiny, indivisible particles he called atomos — “uncuttable.” He arrived at this conclusion not through experiment, but through pure philosophical reasoning. He was largely ignored for two millennia. Then, in 1803, John Dalton revived the atomic theory with experimental evidence, and by the 20th century, the atom had become the foundation of modern physics, chemistry, and the nuclear age. The building shown alongside his statue — the National Center for Scientific Research “Demokritos” — was named in his honor and houses Greece’s only nuclear research reactor. The reverse features the Academy of Athens, completed in 1885, designed by Danish architect Theophil Hansen, with colossal statues of Athena and Apollo flanking the entrance and Plato and Socrates seated at the base.

P-197: The Great Eleusinian Relief — The Most Sacred Image in Ancient Greece

The central image on the 500 Drachmai 1968 is the Great Eleusinian Relief, one of the most revered works of art in the ancient world, carved around 440–430 BC and now housed in the National Archaeological Museum of Athens. It depicts Demeter, goddess of the harvest, presenting a sheaf of wheat to the young prince Triptolemos, while Persephone crowns him with a wreath — the founding myth of agriculture itself. The Eleusinian Mysteries were practiced for nearly 2,000 years at Eleusis; their content was so secret that initiates faced death for revealing them, and we still don’t know exactly what happened inside. The reverse features a Minoan wild goat carving from Knossos — Europe’s first advanced civilization, flourishing from 2700 to 1450 BC. Together, front and back span nearly 3,000 years of Greek artistic tradition.

P-198: The Artemision Bronze — The Greatest Statue That Almost Wasn’t

The figure on the 1000 Drachmai 1970 is the Artemision Bronze, a larger-than-life cast bronze statue recovered from the sea off Cape Artemision in 1926, now one of the crown jewels of the National Archaeological Museum of Athens. Dating to around 460 BC, it depicts Zeus in the act of hurling a thunderbolt, his arms outstretched in perfect balance. The statue lay on the seabed for over 2,000 years; it is one of the very few original Greek bronzes to survive antiquity. Also on the front: the Theatre of Epidaurus, built around 340 BC, seating 14,000 people, still used for performances today — its acoustics so perfect that a coin dropped at center stage can be heard from the back row. The reverse shows the port of Hydra, the car-free island where Leonard Cohen lived in the 1960s and wrote some of his most famous songs.

P-199: Poseidon and Bouboulina — The God and the Admiral

Poseidon — the Earth-Shaker, ruler of the seas, credited with causing earthquakes and storms with a single strike of his trident — appears on the first note of the post-junta democratic era. For the ancient Greeks, who depended on the sea for trade, war, and survival, Poseidon was both protector and terror. The reverse honors Laskarina Bouboulina (1771–1825), a wealthy widow from Spetses who used her own fortune to build and arm a fleet of warships, commanding her flagship Agamemnon personally during the Greek War of Independence. She directed cannon fire at the fortress of Palamidi at the siege of Nafplio and was posthumously honored as an Admiral of the Russian Imperial Navy — the only woman ever to hold that rank. She was assassinated in 1825, shot through a window during a family dispute.

P-200: Athena, Korais, and the Monastery That Chose Death

The Athena of Piraeus on the front — a stunning 4th-century BC bronze discovered accidentally in 1959 during construction work in Piraeus harbor, standing nearly 2.4 meters tall — is paired with the University of Athens, founded in 1837, the first university in the modern Greek state. The reverse honors Adamantios Korais (1748–1833), who spent most of his life in Paris yet did more for Greek national identity than almost anyone who stayed home — creating Katharevousa, a reformed literary Greek that bridged ancient and modern forms, and corresponding with Thomas Jefferson. Behind him: the Arkadi Monastery in Crete, where on November 9, 1866, surrounded by Ottoman forces, the abbot ordered the powder magazine ignited rather than surrender — killing hundreds and shocking Europe into supporting Cretan independence.

P-201: Kapodistrias — The Diplomat Who Built a Nation

Ioannis Kapodistrias (1776–1831), depicted on the 500 Drachmes 1983, was the first head of state of independent Greece — a Corfiot aristocrat who had served as Foreign Minister of Russia before returning to lead his newly liberated homeland. He established Greece’s first modern institutions: a national currency, a postal system, schools, and a professional army. He was assassinated in 1831 by political rivals, just three years into his tenure — a martyr of Greek state-building. The Corfu fortress on the reverse is a reminder of his island origins and the Venetian-era fortifications that shaped the Ionian Islands’ distinct identity within Greece.

P-202: Apollo and the Discobolus — Mind and Body at Olympia

Apollo, god of light, music, poetry, and prophecy, appears on the 1000 Drachmes 1987 alongside the Discobolus — the famous discus thrower — and the Temple of Hera at Olympia, the oldest temple at the site of the ancient Olympic Games. The pairing is deliberate: Apollo represents the Greek ideal of the kalos kagathos — the beautiful and the good, mind and body in harmony. The Olympic Games originated at Olympia in 776 BC and were held every four years for over a millennium before being banned by the Roman Emperor Theodosius I in 393 AD. They were revived in Athens in 1896. The Temple of Hera, dating to around 600 BC, is where the Olympic flame is still lit today before every modern Games.

P-204: Rigas Feraios — The Poet Who Died for a Dream

Rigas Feraios (1757–1798), the final figure in this set, was a Greek revolutionary, poet, and visionary who dreamed of a Balkan federation free from Ottoman rule — decades before Greek independence was achieved. His Thourios (War Hymn) became the battle cry of the Greek independence movement: “It is better to live one hour as a free man than forty years as a slave.” He was arrested by Austrian authorities in 1797, handed over to the Ottomans, and strangled in 1798 in Belgrade — his body thrown into the Danube. He never saw the revolution he inspired. The reverse of this note depicts The Secret School, a painting by Nikolaos Gyzis showing a Greek Orthodox priest secretly teaching children to read Greek during the Ottoman occupation — one of the most iconic images in Greek national consciousness.

About Greece

• Origin of name: “Greece” derives from Latin Graecia; Greeks call their country Hellas (Ελλάς), from Hellen, the mythological ancestor of the Greek people
• Capital: Athens — city pop. ~664,000; metro pop. ~3.6 million
  • Origin of name: Named after the goddess Athena; the origin of Athena’s own name remains debated — possibly pre-Greek
• Population: ~10.4 million (UN 2023) — similar to Michigan or Portugal
• Area: 131,957 km² (50,949 mi²) — similar to Alabama or England
• GDP per capita (PPP): ~$40,000 (IMF 2024)
• Main exports: Petroleum products, aluminum, pharmaceuticals, olive oil, cotton, tobacco, fruits
• Borders: Albania, North Macedonia, Bulgaria (north); Turkey (northeast); surrounded by Aegean, Ionian, and Mediterranean seas
• Memberships: United Nations (founding member, 1945); NATO (1952); European Union (1981); Eurozone (2001)
• Sovereignty: Independence from the Ottoman Empire declared 1821; recognized 1830; modern republic established 1974

Greece Unfiltered

• Debt crisis: Greece triggered the worst sovereign debt crisis in EU history (2010–2018), receiving three international bailouts totaling over €289 billion
• Ancient democracy: Athens invented democracy around 508 BC — and then lost it repeatedly for the next 2,400 years
• Shipping dominance: Greek shipowners control roughly 20% of global shipping tonnage — more than any other nation — despite Greece having only 0.13% of the world’s population
• Military junta: From 1967 to 1974, Greece was ruled by a military dictatorship — four of the nine notes in this set were issued during that period
• Oldest city in Europe: Athens has been continuously inhabited for at least 7,000 years
• The last drachma: On January 1, 2002, Greece retired the drachma after 2,600 years of use — making every note in this set a piece of one of history’s longest-running currencies

Own all nine and own the arc of modern Greece — from a nymph fleeing a river god to a revolutionary poet facing an Ottoman firing squad, with Zeus, Athena, Poseidon, and Apollo in between. This is not just a banknote set. It is a civilization in nine pieces of paper.