The Cook Collection of Central and Eastern European Banknotes

Joe Cook

In 1998 I was juggling a commute between Prague and Bucharest as I worked on the launch of Romania’s first financial daily newspaper, Ziarul Financiar, as well as reporting from both places for The Economist and the Financial Times. A week or two in Prague followed by a fortnight in Bucharest; back and forth throughout most of the year.

In Bucharest my billet was the Hotel Lido on Boulevard Magheru, a traffic-choked six-lane artery that runs through the centre of the city. Away from the newsroom I would regularly mooch about in the large anticariat (second-hand bookshop) across from the Lido and up towards Piața Universității, as ever on the look-out for books that would add to my understanding of the places I was reporting from: Central and Eastern Europe, and, at that particular time, Romania and the Balkans.

During one such mooch, in June, a nondescript and rather tatty green spine caught my eye as I scanned the bookshelves. It was an album of some sort… stamps or photographs perhaps? I opened it and was transfixed by the careful arrangement of old banknotes from across Central and Eastern Europe. I marched straight to the counter and bought it, paying the then lei equivalent of about £100.

Back at the Lido I showed my trove, with the eagerness of a schoolboy, to Johnny Krčmář, an old Reuters hand who was helping to train young Romanian reporters for the newspaper. He identified the language on a couple of mysterious banknotes dated 1917 and denominated in French francs: “Gosh! That’s Albanian! What were the French doing there?!” Among the other notes were Romanian ones dated 1917 and issued by the German occupying military command. Several Austro-Hungarian notes bore circular handstamps telling the bearer that they were now holding Romanian tender, and not that of the Habsburg Empire. The album also housed large rectangular Polish notes from 1919, the first issue after Poland’s reconstitution as a sovereign state, and a group of Hungarian notes with mega denominations of millions and billions of pengő, Hungary’s currency during the inflation ravaged years of the 1930s and 40s.

Here, then, in these old banknotes, was a potted history of the political economy of the Europe between Germany and Russia, between the Baltic Sea and the Balkan peninsula. This was my professional stomping ground. And so, inspired by the contents of that tatty green album from Bucharest, I set about looking for the folding stuff that people were carrying in their purses and wallets at the turning points in the region’s history.

Following the launch of Ziarul Financiar I spent much of 1999 roving more widely around the region. Working visits from Prague to Bratislava, Budapest, Skopje, Sofia, Warsaw and Zagreb now included a quick scout of numismatic and philately shops, bric-a-brac stalls, antique dealers and the like. One such visit to Sofia took my interest in paper money to another level.

I was there to interview the deputy governor of the Bulgarian National Bank (BNB), Martin Daimov, about the stabilizing effects of Bulgaria’s 1997 imposition of a currency board following a severe economic crisis. The news peg was the BNB’s impending redenomination of the lev with the deletion of three zeros and the introduction of new notes and coins: the currency board’s fixed exchange rate thus moved, overnight, from 1,000 leva to one lev per Deutschmark. After the interview I was shown the BNB archive of Bulgaria’s entire run of coinage and paper money, all of it in pristine condition. The notes from the 1920s featuring King Boris III were particularly stunning. Where could I find some?

Shortly thereafter, I saw a notice in the Bank Note Reporter about a 1920s Bulgaria set coming to auction in Scotland. I gingerly placed my bids, by telephone, and to my surprise won all but one of the set. I later asked the auctioneer if he would introduce me to the bidder who won the note missing from “my” set. And that is how I met Barnaby Faull.

Barnaby agreed to sell me “my” missing note, and over the following few years he would alert me to banknotes of potential interest that were coming under the hammer. From time to time he would also offer notes and proofs by private sale. Several of the notes and proofs from pre-war Czechoslovakia and the Balkan monarchies of Albania, Bulgaria, Romania and Yugoslavia that are catalogued herein, were brought to my attention by Barnaby. Some of them have never before come to the public marketplace.

The collapse of communism in Europe in 1989 and the dissolution of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991 completely changed the political economy of Europe. In 1991 the three Baltic States regained their independence. That same year Yugoslavia collapsed into ethnic and territorial warfare that eventually led to seven independent successor states. And in 1993 Czechoslovakia became the Czech Republic and Slovakia. These tumultuous events led to a flourish of new national currencies, most of which are represented, to one extent or another, in the collection.

By 2003 I had moved from journalism into the business of corporate and financial communications. Running and growing the agency was an all-consuming affair, and my last additions to the collection were made in early 2004.

During my time reporting on Central and Eastern Europe, a key goal of every country in the region was membership of the European Union (EU). All EU members, bar Denmark, are treaty-bound to introduce the euro upon fulfilling certain economic criteria. Several member states from the region have duly replaced their national currencies with the euro, including Croatia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia and Slovenia. Two aspiring members of the EU, Montenegro and Kosovo, by-passed a national currency altogether, adopting the euro in 2003 and 2008 respectively. More national currencies will evaporate as more countries enter the Eurozone, with Bulgaria perhaps the next in line.

The gradual disappearance of Central and Eastern European national currencies will surely add to the historical interest, and perhaps importance, of many of the notes in the collection. And I trust their new guardians will ensure their preservation, and derive as much enjoyment from them as I have.

It has been a pleasure to again talk banknotes with Barnaby, and to work with Andrew Pattison, Head of the Banknote Department, on this catalogue and sale. Like all good trusted advisors, they combine knowledge, experience and enthusiasm.
Joe Cook
Prague