They were paper, not plastic. The Government could not affort plastic at the time, and still cannot.
Yes, that pretty much clearly tipped me off when I got them. I was like, WTF is this?
Or more simply put, it says “one hundred million trillion pengő”.
It is ZW$, not US$, so a trillion is completely possible. Inflation became impressive.
From Wikipedia, inflation reached
Old joke from Argentina during hyperinflation:
Q- “Which is cheaper, the bus or a taxi?”
A- “Taxi, because you don’t pay until the end of the ride.”
Years ago I had a One Million Dollar Bill, with Bill Clinton’s picture. It was actually sort of real looking.
I was at a bar with friends and we all tossed our change on the table for the jukebox. I threw in the bill. One of my friends took the bill up to the bar and asked the owner if he could have change.
The owner went nuts, screaming about how we were crooks trying to cheat him. He chased us out, screaming the entire time.
albeit, somewhat sad, this vid from venezuela seems relevant:
Reminds me of this historical Hungarian photo. I also feel I’ve seen a similar one from Germany.
Wow. I’ve seen people toss pennies, but the idea that paper currency could be so devalued is just incomprehensible
Here’s a pictures from post WWI inflation in Germany of a woman firing her stove with some worthless bills:
Title
German women burning money to fuel her stove during the post World War I hyper-inflation in 1923. At the time, an American dollar was worth 800 million German marks
Pretty sure I heard the same stories about hyperinflationary Hungary, as well.
ETA: Another photo – no caption, but author implies it’s also from Germany (oh, and you can read “MARK” on at least one of the bills.)
