Most people are familiar with Zimbabwe’s trillion-dollar bill notes or have heard stories about Germans using worthless Marks during the Weimar Republic for wallpaper, but what few realize is that Hungary broke all the records. Between 1945 and 1946, Hungary was in a state of hyperinflation, with inflation rates reaching 41.9 quintillion percent (that is 41,900,000,000,000,000,000%).
During this period, Hungary printed two record-shattering banknotes. One was the highest denomination ever issued, and the other was the highest ever printed.
The 1946 Százmillió-B. pengő had a value of 100,000,000 B., which represents 100 million million million or one hundred quintillion (1020) and is the highest denomination ever issued in history!
To get an idea of how much one hundred quintillion is: if an individual pengő banknote was 2×4 square inches, 100 quintillion banknotes would completely cover our planet, 2000 layers deep! (You can see a comparison with US dollars here.)
In 1923, inflation in Germany had spiralled so wildly out of control that kids used banknotes to build this beautiful kite!
