Hungary P118b 1000 Pengő 1945 VF+ Very Fine Plus—Dark Green—Woman—Stamp

Issued two months after the war ended, featuring an allegorical woman on a note that would be worthless within a year — and stamped by government order, forcing every holder to walk into a bank and pay three times its face value just to keep it legal.

Banknote Characteristics

• Varieties:
  • P-118a — without red adhesive stamp
  • P-118b — with red adhesive stamp (December 1945 capital levy; unstamped notes reduced to one-quarter face value)
• Composition: Paper
• Size: 185 × 90 mm (7.28 × 3.54 in)
• Issuing entity: Magyar Nemzeti Bank (Hungarian National Bank)
• Issued: 15 July 1945
• Signatures: Zsigmond Thaly (Főtanácsos), Imre Oltványi & Lajos Faragó (Vezérigazgató)
• Demonetized: 6 May 1946
• References: P-118; Adamo MBK2# P22
• Currency: Pengő (1927–1946)
• Country: Hungary — Provisional Government (1944–1945)

Front (Obverse)

The front is printed in dense black intaglio over a pink-tinted ground — a wartime economy of means that gives the note a striking, high-contrast look. Engraved by Franke Rupert, designed by Helbing Ferenc.

• Portrait medallion (right): An allegorical woman in historical Hungarian dress — rose in her hair, lace collar, embroidered bodice — set in an oval frame of concentric guilloché rings with bead-and-reel and floral detailing
• Coat of arms (lower right): The Hungarian coat of arms — Árpád stripes on the left, double cross on hills on the right, crowned above, wrapped in foliage and ribbon scrolls
• Central denomination cartouche: A large framed oval bearing EZER PENGŐ in bold serif
  • Inner border: fine guilloché mesh with micro-ornamental beading
  • Outer border: baroque scrollwork with acanthus-leaf extensions
  • “1000” numeral panel at top center in its own ornate cartouche with a drop-shadow engraving effect
• Issuing authority block: Budapest, 1945. évi július hó 15-én in small caps; MAGYAR NEMZETI BANK centered in heavier serif below
• Anti-counterfeiting text: A bankjegyhamisítást a törvény bünteti (“Counterfeiting banknotes is punishable by law”), quietly integrated into the central panel
• Corner rosettes: Circular guilloché medallions in all four corners with spirographic radial geometry
• Stamp (P-118b only): A red rectangular adhesive stamp, slightly angled, affixed over the portrait’s upper medallion
  • Design: crowned MNB emblem on a sunburst/rosette background
  • Purpose: revalidates the note as legal tender without reprinting — unstamped notes were cut to one-quarter face value

Back (Reverse)

The reverse continues the same black-on-pink intaglio language, with the ornamental density turned up. There’s no portrait here — just denomination, language, and pattern filling every inch.

• Central denomination panel: EZER PENGŐ in bold serif, surrounded by layered guilloché ovals and interlaced scrollwork; “1000” in its own oval guilloché cartouche at top center, flanked by symmetrical floral rosettes
• Multilingual denomination inscriptions: Arching across the upper left and right in six languages — Hungarian, German, Slovak, Romanian, Ruthenian (Ukrainian), and Serbo-Croatian in both Latin and Cyrillic alphabets — a quiet record of the multi-ethnic world Hungary once ruled
• Serial numbers: Printed in red — prefix + number at left, full numeric serial at right; clean sans-serif that pops against the ornate field
• Ornamental field: Scrolling vines and acanthus leaves mirrored symmetrically across the vertical axis
  • Interlocking ribbons and spiral volutes throughout
  • Rosette clusters of varying sizes scattered across the field
  • Continuous engraved border with alternating thick scrolls and fine filigree, densest at the corners

Design Summary

This note belongs to a tradition of security printing rooted in late 19th-century historicist engraving — the same visual language used on the great banknotes of the Austro-Hungarian era, now pressed into service under postwar austerity.

• Style: Late historicist / neo-baroque engraving adapted for security printing
• Security approach: High-density guilloché; complex radial rosettes; layered line-thickness variation simulating intaglio depth
• Visual hierarchy: Denomination dominates — portrait humanizes — ornament fills the rest
• Material economy: Single ink (black) on a tinted pink substrate instead of multicolor printing — a postwar constraint that became a coherent aesthetic

About Hungary

• Capital: Budapest (city ~1.7 million; metro ~3.3 million)
• Population: ~9.7 million (UN 2023) — similar to North Carolina or Michigan
• Area: 93,028 km² (35,918 mi²) — similar to Indiana or Portugal
• GDP per capita at PPP: ~$43,000 USD (IMF 2024) — ranks ~45th out of 193 globally
• Main exports: Vehicles, machinery, electronics, pharmaceuticals
• Borders (current): Austria, Slovakia, Ukraine, Romania, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia
• Official/spoken language: Hungarian (~100%) — a Uralic language unrelated to any of its neighbors
• Sovereignty:
  • Pannonia — Roman province (1st century AD–433); before Rome, home to Celtic and Illyrian tribes
  • Hunnic Empire (433–469) — Huns arrived from the Eurasian steppe (Central Asia) under Attila; empire collapsed after his death
  • Germanic and Avar kingdoms (469–895)
  • Magyar conquest (895) — Magyars from the Ural region, arrived under Árpád, displacing/absorbing Slavs/Avars
  • Kingdom of Hungary (1000–1526) — founded by Stephen I, ruling Transylvania, Croatia and Dalmatia, Slovakia, Transcarpathia, and Vojvodina
  • Battle of Mohács (1526) — Ottoman victory; Hungary split into: Ottoman-occupied central Hungary, semi-autonomous Transylvania, and Royal Hungary (most = today’s Slovakia) under the Habsburgs — with Pozsony (Bratislava) serving as the capital and coronation city
  • Habsburg rule (1526–1867) — Ottomans expelled by 1699; Pozsony remained the capital until 1848, when Budapest took over; Hungary subject to Vienna throughout
  • Austro-Hungarian Dual Monarchy (1867–1918) — Hungary co-equal partner with Austria, ruling a vast multi-ethnic empire
  • Horthy Regency (1920–1944)
    • Treaty of Trianon (1920) — Hungary lost ~72% of its territory and ~64% of its population:
      • Transylvania to Romania
      • Slovakia and Transcarpathia to Czechoslovakia
      • Vojvodina to Yugoslavia
      • Croatia-Slavonia and Dalmatia to Yugoslavia and Italy
      • Burgenland to Austria
  • Arrow Cross / German occupation (1944–1945)
  • Provisional Government (1944–1945)
  • “People’s Republic” (1949–1989) — communist dictatorship, Soviet satellite state; USSR crushed the 1956 uprising
  • Republic (1989–present) — member of NATO (1999–present) and the European Union (2004–present)

The stamp that split this note into two versions

In December 1945, the provisional government attempted a one-off capital levy to slow inflation. Holders had to walk into a bank, hand over three times the note’s face value in cash, and receive a red adhesive stamp in return — proof that the note was still legal tender. Skip the queue, lose the money: unstamped notes were immediately reduced to one-quarter of their nominal worth. The 1,000 Pengő was one of three denominations subject to this measure. It failed to stop the inflation. Notes with and without the stamp now exist as distinct collectible varieties.

The Pengő and the hyperinflation that ended it

The Pengő was introduced in 1927 as a stable, modern currency. By July 1945, when this note was issued, the collapse was well underway. Within a year, Hungary experienced the worst hyperinflation in recorded human history — prices doubling every 15 hours by July 1946. Denominations climbed from thousands to millions to billions, eventually requiring entirely new naming conventions: the milpengő (million Pengő) and the b.-pengő (billion Pengő). The largest denomination ever printed was the 100 quintillion Pengő. The Pengő was demonetized on 6 May 1946 and replaced by the Forint at a rate of 400,000 quadrillion to one.

A Posthumous Ode to the Pengő, by World Money Store

The printing press for the Hungarian pengő,
Went crazy, but why? Had it learned the flamenco?
No! Government, weak, had to pay for its spending,
So prices went higher; it was never ending.

More pengős in money supply caused such trouble,
That merchants were constantly marking tags double;
The workers got salaries paid in the morning,
And spent them by noontime, since prices were soaring.

A note marked ten thousand for onions and bread,
Then one hundred thousand, then millions it said.
Ten milpengő meant it was valued ten million,
A b-pengő meant it's already a trillion.

The last of them seen said one hundred quintillion,
But one they held back was a stunning sextillion!
They had to replace the poor pengő with forint,
To close this book's chapter: "Inflation Abhorrent"

Own this note from the opening of the collapse

The 1,000 Pengő was a large denomination in peacetime. By the time this note was printed, it was already becoming ordinary. It is a document of the moment Hungary crossed the threshold from postwar hardship into economic catastrophe.

The woman on the note looks serene. The economy was not.