THE WORLD'S WORST INFLATION?
By Joel Anderson
The recent civil war in what used to be Yugoslavia has brought
on some
of the worst inflation the world has ever known, far exceeding that of
the famed 1923 hyper-inflation of Germany. In 1990, with the collapse
of
the "communism" throughout Europe, a new currency was introduced, with
one of the "new" Dinara being equal to 10,000 of the "old" Dinara.
Inflation
picked up in 1992, as the Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovinia, and
Macedonia
declared their independence from Yugoslavia. Another new currency was
introduced,
with one of the "new" Dinara being equal to ten of the previous Dinara.
By the autumn of 1993, with an international embargo on Yugoslavia and
the country trying to support Serb rebels in Croatia and
Bosnia-Herzegovinia
inflation really got going, and another new currency was introduced,
also
called the Dinara, with one new Dinara equal to 1 million previous
Dinara.
Paying for a war by running the printing press does not work.
Denominations
as high as 500,000,000,000 Dinara were produced, before another new
currency
was introduced on January 1, 1994, with of the new Dinara being equal
to
1 Billion of the previous Dinara that had been introduced only months
before.
Thus it took 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 of the new 1994 Dinara to
equal
one of the pre-1990 Dinara.
Naturally by now no one trusted the Yugoslav currency. The
German Mark
had become the preferred currency. In February 1994 the Yugoslav
government
gave up on the old Dinara and started over. A new currency, tied one to
one to the German Mark was introduced. Production was severely limited
based on the amount of hard currency on hand and some of the worse
inflation
the world ever knew came to an end.
Most of the notes issued during this inflationary period are
available
to collectors. Be careful about paying the prices shown in the paper
money
catalogs. Many formerly hard-to-find notes with high catalog values are
becoming available for only a few dollars each or less.
TABLE OF
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