Last updated: September 2026

What currency did Greece use before the euro?

Greece used the drachma. It was the national currency through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and was replaced by the euro in 2001, with euro cash arriving on 1 January 2002. Two institutions issued drachma banknotes: the National Bank of Greece from the 1840s, and the Bank of Greece from 1928 onward.

That split is the single most useful thing a new collector can learn about Greek paper money, because it decides what you are looking at before you read a single word of Greek. Notes marked ΕΘΝΙΚΗ ΤΡΑΠΕΖΑ ΤΗΣ ΕΛΛΑΔΟΣ are National Bank of Greece issues and belong to the older, scarcer half of the field. Notes marked ΤΡΑΠΕΖΑ ΤΗΣ ΕΛΛΑΔΟΣ are Bank of Greece issues and cover everything from 1928 to the end of the drachma.

Who issued Greek banknotes before the Bank of Greece?

The National Bank of Greece did. It was established as a société anonyme on 30 March 1841, headquartered in the capital, and its first Governor, Georgios Stavros, consolidated the institution the following year, established the circulation of banknotes and expanded the bank by opening fifteen branches across Greece.

Those facts come from the bank's own historical record, which also tracks its role through the century that followed, from financing the Corinth Canal works in 1881 to supporting the preparation of the first modern Olympic Games in Athens in 1896 (National Bank of Greece, Our History). The bank's Historical Archive, founded in 1962 and housed in the Megaro Diomidi in Athens, preserves material from 1841 to the present and was the first building in Greece constructed specifically to house an archive (National Bank of Greece, Historical Archive).

The National Bank's run is long and varied. The catalog lists issues of 1863 to 1867, 1867 to 1869, 1870 to 1878, a pair of small notes authorized by the Law of 21 December 1885, provisional issues of 1885 and 1897, and further families through 1886 to 1897, 1892 and 1897, 1900 and 1903, and a 500 drachmai note of 1901. Denominations run from 1 drachma up to 500, and most of the nineteenth-century notes are genuinely scarce.

When did the Bank of Greece start issuing banknotes?

In 1928. The Bank of Greece began operations that year with funds and personnel provided by the National Bank of Greece, and at the same time the National Bank waived its banknote issuing privileges. The new central bank's first notes were not new designs at all: they were provisional issues, existing notes adapted to carry the new issuer's name.

The National Bank of Greece records the handover in its own timeline, noting that the Bank of Greece began its operations in 1928 while the National Bank provided funds and personnel and waived its note-issuing rights (National Bank of Greece). The catalog shows exactly how messy the practical changeover was. It lists a First Provisional Issue, a Second Provisional Issue and a Third Provisional Issue, all dated around 1928, running across 5, 20, 25, 50, 100, 500, 1000 and 5000 drachmai. One 1000 drachmai variety is described as a red bar overprint over the signature at lower right, and others carry old dates of 15 October 1926 and 4 November 1926 with no signature under the red bar.

Those provisional notes are the most interesting thing in early Bank of Greece collecting, because each one records an institution taking over a currency in a hurry. Purpose-designed Bank of Greece notes follow from the 1932 issue onward, with further families in 1935 and 1939.

What happened to Greek banknotes in the Second World War?

The occupation years produced a long chain of emergency and inflation issues. The catalog groups them as a 1941 Emergency Reissue, then Inflation Issues dated 1941, 1942, 1943 and 1944, with denominations climbing steadily through the sequence as the drachma lost its purchasing power.

That chapter has its own page in this library. Our Greece 1944 hyperinflation reference covers what happened to the currency under Axis occupation, the scale of the collapse with its attributed figures, the record denominations it produced, and the reform that ended it. This hub stays on the shape of the issues rather than repeating that record.

For a collector, the wartime notes are the point at which Greek paper money stops being a tidy national series and turns into a dense catalog of emergency printings, far scarcer in good grade than the familiar modern hyperinflation notes of other countries. If crisis currency is your interest, every hyperinflation ranked puts Greece beside the others.

What did post-war drachma banknotes look like?

They went back to classical subjects and to British printing. The 1944 to 1946 family and the issues of 1947 and 1949 were printed by Bradbury Wilkinson, and they set the visual pattern that Greek money kept for the rest of the century: a figure from Greek history or antiquity on the front, a scene or a monument on the back.

The 10,000 drachmai note of 1945 is a good example. It carries Aristotle at left with ancient coins around the border and a standing male figure on the back, printed by Bradbury Wilkinson without an imprint. The 1954 to 1956 family then introduced a 100 drachmai note dated 31 March 1954 showing Themistocles at left with a galley at bottom right and sailing ships on the reverse, reissued on 1 July 1955 (PMG World Paper Money Price Guide).

The 1964 to 1970 family is where the designs turn modern. Its 100 drachmai note pairs the ancient atomist Demokritos with a building and an atomic symbol on the front and a university on the back, watermarked with an ephebus, and it is cataloged in two varieties by the signature of the Bank President: Zolotas on notes dated 1 July 1966 and Galanis on notes dated 1 October 1967. The gap in value between those two signatures is one of the widest in modern Greek collecting.

What were the last drachma banknotes?

Six denominations were circulating when the euro arrived: 100, 200, 500, 1,000, 5,000 and 10,000 drachmes. The European Central Bank's record of the pre-euro Greek notes lists the head of Athena on the 100 with Adamantios Korais on the back, Rigas Velestinlis-Fereos on the 200, Ioannis Capodistrias on the 500, the head of Apollo on the 1,000, General Theodoros Kolokotronis on the 5,000 and Dr George Papanicolaou on the 10,000. They did not all come from one printing program: the 100 belongs to the 1978 issue, the 500 and 1,000 to the 1983 to 1987 issue, and the 200, 5,000 and 10,000 to the 1995 to 1998 issue.

The 10,000 drachmes note is the one to know. It shows Dr Georgios Papanikolaou at left center with a microscope at lower center right, and on the back a medical care frieze with a statue of Asklepios, the Greek god of medicine. His name is the one attached to the Papanicolaou, or Pap, test, the cytopathology screening method for cervical cancer still in routine use (StatPearls, National Center for Biotechnology Information), which makes this one of the very few circulating banknotes anywhere built around a diagnostic procedure (PMG World Paper Money Price Guide).

The 200 drachmes is the other standout. It carries Rigas Velestinlis-Feraios at left and, at lower right, the poet singing his patriotic song, with a secret school run by Greek priests during the Ottoman occupation on the back, watermarked with Philip of Macedonia. The 5,000 drachmes of 1998 carries Kolokotronis with the Church of the Holy Apostles at Kalamata and a view of Karytaina on the reverse, and the ECB's record shows a 5,000 in the earlier series with the same subject. The 100 of 1978 is the oldest design still in wallets in 2001: Athena Peiraios on the front, Adamantios Korais and the Arkadi Monastery church in Crete on the back, watermarked with the Charioteer of Delphi.

Greek banknote series at a glance

The table gathers the main families of Greek paper money, the denominations recorded for each, and the figures on them. Issue groupings and design details are from the PMG World Paper Money Price Guide, read in September 2026, with the notes circulating at the changeover confirmed against the European Central Bank's record.

When did Greece adopt the euro?

Greece adopted the euro on 1 January 2001 and euro cash arrived a year later, on 1 January 2002. The decision was formal: Council Decision 2000/427/EC of 19 June 2000 found that Greece fulfilled the necessary conditions for adoption of the single currency and abrogated its derogation with effect from 1 January 2001 (EUR-Lex).

The European Central Bank records Greece as euro since 2001 with cash since 2002, where the first wave of member states had adopted the euro in 1999 (European Central Bank). Greece joined the single currency two years later than they did but took part in the same cash changeover on 1 January 2002. The full story of the notes that replaced the drachma is in our history of the euro banknotes.

The drachma's exchange window has since closed. The European Central Bank states that Greek drachma banknotes cannot be exchanged after 1 March 2012 (European Central Bank). For a collector that is the definition of a closed series: no more notes will be printed, none will be redeemed, and the surviving population is fixed at whatever people kept. Our page on currencies that no longer exist covers the same pattern across other retired national currencies, and what is demonetization explains the mechanism.

What are Greek drachma banknotes worth?

The nineteenth-century National Bank notes are the serious end of the market and the 1980s and 1990s notes are the affordable end. The table gives catalog values in US dollars from the PMG World Paper Money Price Guide, read in September 2026. Older notes are cataloged at Good 4 and Fine 12, later ones at Very Good 8, Very Fine 20 and Uncirculated 60, so each row names the grades it uses.

Two lessons sit in that table. First, the signature effect: the same Demokritos design is a serious note with one Bank President's signature and pocket change with the next. Second, the replacement premium: a common 500 drachmes note in uncirculated condition is inexpensive, while the 00A replacement printing is a different proposition, the pattern our page on star notes and replacement notes tracks everywhere. The catalog numbers are Pick numbers, explained in our guide to Pick numbers, and what determines banknote value covers the rest.

How do you start collecting Greek banknotes?

Start with the notes that were circulating in 2001 and work backward. The six denominations the European Central Bank lists for the changeover are the easiest set in Greek collecting: attractive, documented by the ECB as well as by the catalogs, and obtainable in uncirculated condition on a modest budget.

From there the field opens in three directions. The 1980s issues add the Charioteer of Delphi watermark and the Olympia imagery, and their 00A replacement printings are genuinely hard to chase. The post-war and 1960s issues reward learning the Bank President signatures, where most of the price variation lives. The nineteenth-century National Bank issues are a specialist field: scarce, expensive, and best entered with one carefully chosen note.

Learn the grading ladder first. Grades run from Uncirculated down through AU, XF, VF, F, VG and G, and the certified market uses a 1 to 70 scale: our banknote grading guide explains it, and graded versus raw banknotes covers when third-party certification earns its cost. The banknote glossary defines replacement notes, prefixes and the rest of the vocabulary.

Where can you buy Greek banknotes?

Buy from an established dealer that authenticates every note, documents where it came from, and stands behind it in writing. Prices far below every other seller, vague sourcing and no returns are the signals to walk away from.

Planet Banknote sources notes direct from mints, central banks and authorized distributors rather than reselling anonymous lots. Browse the banknotes by country directory, where availability changes with what has been sourced, and see third-party certified pieces in the graded banknotes selection. Curated hyperinflation sets are worth checking too, since their contents change with what has been sourced. Our guide to buying world banknotes safely and how to collect world banknotes cover the rest.

Planet Banknote is a family-owned dealership in Sarasota, Florida, founded in 2021. Every note is sourced direct from mints, central banks, and authorized distributors, inspected through our Planet Banknote Verified process, and ships with a free Certificate of Authenticity. US orders ship free via USPS Priority, and every order includes a free bonus gift.