What do you think of this fact?
Zimbabwe had brutal inflation. So did Weimar Germany. But the record belongs to another country: Hungary, in the summer of 1946.
Prices rising by the hour
After World War II, Hungary’s economy was in ruins. The government printed money to cover its spending, and the currency, the pengő, lost value faster than any currency before or since.
In July 1946, according to Planet Banknote, inflation hit an estimated 41.9 quadrillion percent per month. Prices roughly doubled every 15 hours. If you wanted to buy something in the morning and waited until evening, you paid almost twice as much. Overnight it got even worse.
A bill with 20 zeros
Just to be able to pay at all, Hungary printed absurd bills. On top of the regular pengő there was the “b.-pengő”, where one b.-pengő equaled a trillion pengő. The largest bill that actually circulated was 100 million b.-pengő. That’s a 1 with 20 zeros. According to Amusing Planet, it was worth about 20 US cents.
An even bigger bill was printed, for one billion b.-pengő. It was never issued.
Bonus fact: On August 1, 1946, Hungary introduced the forint. According to Planet Banknote, one forint replaced 400 octillion pengő, a 4 followed by 29 zeros.
The forint is still Hungary’s currency today. So the country managed something that’s far from guaranteed after a crash like that: a fresh start that lasted.
For comparison: with inflation at two percent a year, it takes about 35 years for prices to double. In Hungary in 1946, it took less than 15 hours.