1935 (struck 1940) 100 Drachmai

After the catastrophic Greek defeat in the Greco-Turkish War of 1919-1922 - the so-called Asia Minor Catastrophe that ended Greek ambitions in Anatolia and produced the massive forced population exchange between Greece and Turkey - the Greek army and navy mutinied. King Constantine I was forced to abdicate in September 1922; his son George II briefly succeeded him before being driven into exile in turn. In 1924 a national referendum, with around 70 percent in favour, formally proclaimed the Second Hellenic Republic.

The Republic was unstable from the start. By 1935, after a decade of coups, counter-coups, and short-lived governments, the Prime Minister and effective dictator Georgios Kondylis - who had begun his career as a hard-line republican officer - flipped completely and reinvented himself as a monarchist. A new referendum on the restoration of the monarchy was rapidly organised. The result: 100 percent in favour. The voting procedure made the outcome predictable: voters dropped a blue paper into the ballot box if they supported the king's return, and a red paper if they wished to retain the Republic. In a country with armed officer factions running the streets, anyone seen casting a red paper risked being beaten and, in several documented cases, killed. King George II returned from exile in Romania and was duly proclaimed King of the Hellenes again.

This 100-drachmai silver commemorative is one of the more peculiar artefacts of that political moment. It bears the date 25 NOEMBPIOY 1935 ("25 November 1935") - the day of the restoration - but it was not actually struck in 1935. It was struck in 1940 for the fifth anniversary, back-dated to 1935, with a tiny mintage of only 500 pieces. The obverse shows a bare-headed bust of George II left, with the Greek legend GEORGIOS B' BASILEUS TON ELLINON ("George II, King of the Hellenes") and the back-dated commemorative date. The reverse shows the Greek royal arms - the small white cross on a blue (here, a small shield) field, mantled and crowned with the royal crown of Greece - over the legend BASILEION TIS ELLADOS / 100 DRACHMAI ("Kingdom of Greece, 100 drachmai").

NGC notes on its label and in its census commentary that the great majority of surviving examples show heavy hairlines from contemporary handling and cleaning, and that any genuinely non-impaired example brings a substantial premium. This piece is graded PF 63 - bright cameo proof fields with the portrait and arms fully struck and the surfaces clean enough to grade as a choice proof on a 500-mintage type. It is a small object but a genuinely loaded one: the official Greek state's silver memorial to a referendum result that everyone at the time understood had been delivered at gunpoint - and the king honoured by the coin would, within months of its 1940 striking, be driven into exile a second time by Hitler's invasion of Greece in 1941.