Italian lire 76-77 for L1
Roumanian lei 230-250 for L1

The last I heard from Vienna was that they had been varying from ten
thousand to fifteen thousand to the paper pound!

The difference in the rates depended, of course, upon whether the
customer was buying or selling the foreign money. If he was buying
Austrian notes, he would get twenty-four hundred paper crowns for a
pound. If he was selling them, he would receive a pound in exchange for
twenty-six hundred paper crowns.

All these paper notes are called after, and profess to represent,
silver coins, which were themselves before the war, tokens, and passed
current at more than their intrinsic value because of their relation to
gold.

Thus the pre-war parity of marks was about twenty to the gold pound; of
Austrian crowns, about twenty-four; of francs, lire, etc., about
twenty-five. On the day of my purchase, therefore, the exchange value
of the German mark was less than one thirteenth, of the Austrian crown
less than one one hundredth, and of the Polish mark, one two hundredth,
of its pre-war status. But this underestimates the depreciation; for
the British pound is no longer a gold sovereign, and even gold has been
depreciated.[17] The paper pound in June, 1921, was, I think, about the
equivalent of twelve pre-war shillings in purchasing power. The gold
dollar, which would only buy a little more than four shillings before
the war, would buy five at the beginning of December, 1921.

[17] To-day, November 30, 1921, the paper pound is worth about
four fifths of a gold pound. The purchasing power of gold--say,
the gold dollar--is perhaps about two thirds of what it was
before the war.

Although an inconvertible paper currency has no intrinsic value, it can
(in accordance with the quantity theory of money) be maintained at a
fairly stable ratio to gold or commodities by an honest government if
the total issue is fixed, or kept between reasonable maximum and
minimum limits. The rise of prices since the war, in each country where
reliable statistics are available, has been in proportion to the
expansion of the paper currency, allowance being made for the scarcity
of commodities. Of course a decline in purchasing power _follows_
an expansion of circulation. The stability of the British paper pound
since a limit was imposed illustrates the correctness of the quantity
theory of m