Czechoslovak crown
From Freepedia
The Czechoslovak crown or Czechoslovak koruna (in Czech and Slovak: Koruna československá, at times Koruna česko-slovenská; "koruna" means crown) was the currency of Czechoslovakia from 10 April, 1919 to 1939 and from November 1, 1945 to February 7, 1993. For a very short time in 1939 and 1993 it was also the currency of separate Czech and Slovak states.
On February 8, 1993 it was replaced by the Czech crown (Czech koruna) and the Slovak crown (Slovak koruna).
The (last) ISO 4217 code and the local acronym for the Czechoslovak crown was CSK, Kčs. One crown equaled 100 hellers (written shortly as "h"in Czech, "hal." in Slovak, in Czech singular: haléř, in Slovak singular:"halier"). The Czechoslovak crown acronym was placed behind the numeric value.
Historically, it replaced the krone - see there for early history.
History
A currency called "crown" (in German Krone) was introduced in the Austria-Hungary monarchy on 11 September, 1892, as the first modern gold-based currency in the area. After the creation of the independent Czechoslovakia in 1918, an urgent need for establishing a new currency system, that would distinguish itself from the currencies of the other newly born countries suffering from inflation, emerged. The next year, on 10 April, 1919, a currency reform took place, defining the new Czechoslovak crown (in Czech and Slovak Koruna československá, Kč/later Kčs). The first banknotes came into circulation the same year, the coins three years later, in 1922.
The crown currency went through a number of further reforms. A particularly drastic one was undertaken in 1953. At that time the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia had to deal with the fact that the there was a double market in the country: a fixed market ensuring basic food availability - a remnant of the post war quota system, and a free market, in which goods were as much as eight times more expensive but of a higher quality. They decided to declare a currency reform valid from 1 June, 1953, and to distribute new banknotes printed in the USSR. The reform had been prepared very quickly and was confidential up to the last minute, but some information leaked anyway, causing a lot of panic among people. The night before the deadline, the president of Czechoslovakia Antonín Zápotocký had a radio speech, in which he strictly denied any possibility of a reform and quieted down the inhabitants, though he had to know that he was lying to the nation. The next day, people (that were lucky enough not to fit into the category of "capitalistic elements", a pejorative category to which the intelligence agency used to blacklist certain individuals) were allowed to change money up to 300 new crowns (in the rate of 5 old to 1 new koruna) and the rest in the rate of 50:1. All insurance stock, state obligations and other commercial papers were nullified. The economic situation of many people got worse insofar as many petitions and demonstrations broke out, the largest of which took place in Plzen, where 472 people were arrested.
In 1993, in accordance with the dissolution of the Czechoslovak federation, the Czechoslovak koruna split into two independent currencies - the Slovak koruna and the Czech koruna. Both currencies will be replaced by the Euro as quickly as their respective countries can meet the criteria for economic convergence with the rest of the European Union.
| Crowns | |
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Current crowns: Czech koruna | Danish krone | Estonian kroon | Faroese króna | Icelandic króna | Norwegian krone | Slovak koruna | Swedish krona | |
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Formerly used crowns: Austro-Hungarian crown | British crown | Czechoslovak crown | Slovak crown (WWII) | |
