The Hungarian Pengo: The Worst Hyperinflation Ever Recorded

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A banknote with a face value of 100 quintillion, a one followed by 20 zeros, could buy about 20 US cents of goods. That was the Hungarian pengo in 1946, the most extreme hyperinflation on record. This episode follows the currency from birth to death. It was introduced on January 1, 1927 with a League of Nations loan, replacing the ruined korona at 12,500 to one, and its name was chosen to evoke the ring of silver coins on a wooden table. Pegged to gold and backed by reserves that reached 51 percent by 1930, it was the most stable currency in its region.

World War II turned the national bank into a printing press. Silver coins gave way to aluminum, steel, and zinc, and the presses were evacuated to Veszprem and kept running. After the war, with no tax base and reparations due, the government used inflation as a hidden tax until prices doubled about every 15 hours. The episode explains the milpengo and bilpengo, the indexed tax pengo that killed the original currency, and the day the forint wiped away 29 zeros.

The central bank weighed names including Turul, Turan, Libertas, and Marias before settling on the sound of silver.
With no time to engrave new plates, the Treasury reused Endre Horvath's prewar designs with different ink colors and new text. A one sextillion note was printed but never issued.
Banknotes from 1945 spelled out their value in six languages, a trace of territories Hungary had lost after World War I.
The adopengo began on January 1, 1946 equal to one pengo. By July 31 one adopengo equaled two sextillion.
On August 1, 1946 one forint cost 400 octillion pengo, and all the pengo in circulation was worth a fraction of a single filler.

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