Hungarian pengő

The story

The pengő reform was legislated in 1925, but compulsory accounts and payment obligations changed on January 1, 1927. The conversion was 12,500 korona to one pengő. The legal date of the reform and the date when the new unit became mandatory are therefore distinct. ^[1]

By 1946 hyperinflation had destroyed the pengő’s usefulness for ordinary prices and payments. The extraordinary denominations of the surviving notes reflect this collapse; they were larger numbers in the same unit, not successive currencies. ^[2]

The forint replaced the pengő on August 1, 1946. Its formal equivalence was 4 × 10²⁹ ordinary pengő to one forint. This expresses the nominal conversion between account units, not a claim that earlier purchasing power was restored. ^{[2] [3]}