Hyperinflation: The Story of 9 Failed Currencies

The world’s major economic powers are all suffering from the economic downturn but even the most cynical doomsayer is sure we’ll get ourselves out of this mess—eventually. Rare are those instances in which entire economies are disrupted to the point – typically as a result of rampant inflation, or hyperinflation – that an entire form of currency is discarded, reformed or replaced. But it does happen.

There are invariably external issues (military, political, etc) at play, which result in what can generally be referred to the ‘failure of a currency’, and each situation is unique. The following is a list of nine notable examples in which currencies became so devalued that they were eventually replaced: