Security features or grammatical errors on Croatian kuna banknotes?

A detailed observation of the 5, 20, and 50 kuna banknotes reveals interesting discoveries. Namely, the microtext printed on the front of the banknotes repeatedly contains one and the same text, but upon careful reading of that text, we find grammatical errors.

The question arises here whether these are accidental grammatical errors or a deliberate omission to deceive counterfeiters (at least the more superficial ones who think the text is identical)?

5 kuna

On the 5-kuna banknote, the following text is repeated in the microtext: „REPUBLIKA HRVATSKA ZRINSKI FRANKOPAN“. However, there is also an error „FRANDKPAN“ instead of „FRANKOPAN“. Likewise, the beginning of the word „ZRIS...“ appears instead of „ZRINS...“.

Errors occur in:
– with trial impressions from 1993.
– with regular banknotes from the year 1993.
– with specimens from the year 1993.
- with regular banknotes dated 2001.
– with specimens from 2001.

20 kuna

On the 20 kuna banknote, the following text is repeated in the microtext: „REPUBLIKA HRVATSKA BAN JELAČIĆ“. The errors that occur are: „JELAČIO“, „JOLAČIO“, „JELAČIC“, „JFLAČIĆ“ instead of „JELAČIĆ“. Likewise, „PAN“ and „DAN“ appear instead of „BAN“.

50 kuna

On the 50 kuna banknote, the following text is repeated in the microtext: „REPUBLIKA HRVATSKA IVAN GUNDULIĆ DUBROVNIK“. The error that occurs is „DUROVNBIK“ instead of „DUBROVNIK“.

Errors occur in:
– with trial impressions from 1993.
– with regular banknotes from the year 1993.
– with specimens from the year 1993.

You can watch the discussion on this interesting topic on the forum “Croatian numismatics”.

This article was originally published on the “Hrvatska numizmatika” blog in 2011. However, the blog.hr service was shut down in 2026, so we are republishing the article here with some minor revisions.

Author: Zlatko Viščević
Photos: Croatian Numismatics Forum“