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The Habsburg empire issued their first paper money
with the date 1 July 1762 on them. The 5, 10, 25, 100 and 500 Forints
denominations were successfully issued with the contribution of Wiener
Stadt Banco. In order to make them more popular, it was made possible to
exchange them to bonds of 5 % interest. Because they were easy to handle
and to transport, they became so popular, that people were even willing
to pay extra charge for them.
These banknotes, worth 7850000 Forints, were re-exchanged to coins and
destoyed after 1763, except for a part of them that could be exchanged
to bonds. To compensate the lack of paper money, new banknotes were
issued in 1 July 1771, worth 12 million. The 500 and 1000 Forints
denominations also came out. In private commerce it wasn’t compulsary to
accept these banknotes either.
The acceptance of the banknotes issued by II. Joseph with the date 1
November 1784 on them became compulsary for the Hungarian authorities.
The notes were worth 20 million Forints. He repealed his decrees about
the acceptance of notes before his death. I. Francis issued new
banknotes worth 7.75 million in 1794 to finance the war against France.
50 Forints denomination notes were released in 1796, worth 44 million.
He secretly issued notes again during the war. Their worth in traffic
was around 92 million Forints. The usage of notes became compulsory and
they refused to re-exchange them to silver.
New notes appeared dated to 1 January 1800 and it was not possible to
replace these 1 or 2 Forints denominations to silver coins either. The
new notes were successively issued. Their depreciation was obvious. In
1800 1 silver Forint was already worth 2 Forints in banknotes. In 1805
the notes’ printing office fled to Budapest from Wien, which was annexed
by the french army. In 1806 they released notes again, but a bigger
amount than announced. Napoleon printed 1 and 2 Forints with the
original printing machines found in Wien. The money amount was worth
over 1 billion Forints by 1810. The depreciation was unstoppable. By
August 1810 100 silver Forints were worth 445 Forints in notes, by
December 900. In 1811 depreciation was enacted. It took place in 1816.
During the war of independence in 1848, new 1 and 2 Forints banknotes
were issued. To compensate the lack of small change, the quarter and
eighth part of them were also accepted. The so called ’’Almássy-notes”
were issued on the expenses of Hungary. The consequence of the lost wars
against Italy in 1859 and Prussia in1866 was three other note issues. In
order to put coins out of commission, new notes, worth 12 million, were
issued. They were called denier. Besides that ’’necessity notes”
appeared in the country. By the foundation of the Austrian-Hungarian
Bank in 1880, the first bilingual notes appeared. In 1881, 1882, 1884,
1888 bonds were issued in denominations of 1, 5, 50 Forints.
During the World War, the Monarchy was on the edge of collapsing. In
1918 notes of 25 and 200 coronas were issued, they were called white
money because of their empty backside. The first independent Hungarian
issue was in 1848-49, then it became constant after 1918.
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