100 trillion Zimbabwe Bank notes, a collector’s delight

Before Christmas I blogged about the effects of inflation on the Zimbabwean economy and now it appears that the now defunct bank notes that needed to be printed in order to cope with the rampant hyperinflation which saw prices climbing on an hourly basis are now a sought after collectors item!

“Most sought after is the one hundred trillion Zimbabwe dollar bill, the highest denomination when the currency was abandoned nearly two years ago and the American dollar became legal”. A one hundred trillion dollar bill! The numbers here are mind boggling!

“During the worst of Zimbabwe’s economic meltdown and hyperinflation, Zimbabwe’s highest money denominations were logged at 10 to the power of 25—10 followed by 25 zeros—or the equivalent of nearly one third of the number of atoms estimated in the universe.The central bank then sliced off several zeros, but large transactions were still calculated in quadrillions (15 zeros) and quintillions (18 zeros) until the demise of the local currency.” See here for full article.