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This Zimbabwe $100 trillion note is a modern relic of hyperinflation.
By Philip Thomas - August 21, 2024
Original link: https://www.pcgs.com/news/zimbabwe-100-trillion-hyperinflation-note
Inflation is one word we hear a lot these days. And while that word tends to elicit a harrowing gut reaction, it’s not necessarily a bad thing. Gradual, moderate, carefully monitored, and managed inflation can serve as a net benefit to an economy, helping to keep businesses profitable and employee wages on the rise, incentivizing investment and working to prevent the possibility of its dreaded inverse – deflation. However, higher rates of inflation – particularly radically elevated levels known as “hyperinflation” – can wreak economic havoc, grinding growth to a halt, making borrowing impossibly expensive, eroding the purchasing power of savings, and placing crushing financial pressure on both companies and households.
The capacious arena of notaphily – or the study and collection of banknotes – contains many tangible, colorful, and crisp paper embodiments of this hyperinflation. There have been somewhere on the order of several dozen hyperinflationary episodes over the last few centuries, with the exact number dependent on how hyperinflation is specifically defined by economists. And luckily for us notaphilists, each episode has come with corresponding banknote keepsakes that physically and visually demonstrate the abject desperation of policymakers and the resulting numeric absurdity of their late-stage banknote issues. This $100 trillion banknote issued by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe in 2008 represents one of the most stunning examples of hyperinflation of all time and unquestionably the single most dramatic of the 21st century.
Hyperinflation doesn’t happen by accident, nor does it occur within a vacuum. Most instances are attributable to nascent, war-torn, or otherwise unstable governments – typically under duress from forces both internal and external – literally keeping the printing presses on full speed 24/7 and adding zeros to the denominations of their fiat currencies in order to service their burgeoning debt load and keep the lights on. Such a strategy may buy a little extra time in the leadup to an inevitable day of reckoning but is obviously not a viable long-term approach in lieu of other effective structural and institutional reforms.
Zimbabwe, a former self-governing British colony once named Rhodesia, declared its independence in 1980 under the leadership of the controversial Robert Mugabe as first its prime minister and then its president. Two decades later, his same leadership led to sharp declines in external finance and agricultural export volume and the plague of a number of international sanctions and suspensions from trade organizations and commonwealths. Millions of Zimbabweans had fled the country as living standards and public health remained precarious and human rights violations were commonplace. A kind of “snowball effect” took over within the nation’s banking and financial sectors, leading to ridiculously high-denominated currency by 2008. The note featured here is the highest of all of the Zimbabwe inflationary issues, which exist in the millions, billions, and trillions of Zimbabwe dollars.
Fun fact: While this $100 trillion banknote holds the record for displaying the greatest number of zeros within its design, it is not the highest inflationary denomination ever issued. That title goes to the Hungarian National Bank’s 1946 100 Quintillion Pengo issue, which, presumably due to space constraints, features its denomination spelled out in Hungarian. Numbers can only take you so far, I suppose.
The denomination of this particular $100 trillion example is mind-numbingly lofty, and its grade is similarly high. This banknote earned every point of its Supreme Gem Uncirculated 70 PPQ grade, proudly displaying flawless, original paper, the sharpest of corners and edges, and well-balanced margins, making it a highly desirable collectable. Just be sure not to pay anywhere close to $100 trillion for it! |
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发表于 2024-9-2 10:30:21
