In August 2024, Toomas Kull completed his third kroon book, “The Era of Estonian Kroon. June 20, 1992 – December 31, 2010.” One hundred numbered copies were printed, each signed by the author. But the most interesting thing about this edition is not how rare it is. It is the principle that holds each individual copy together.
Every copy contains eight genuine Estonian kroon banknotes, set into windows in the pages so that each note can be seen from both sides. A ninth banknote sits inside the cover of the box, still sealed in its original Eesti Pank envelope. And the serial numbers of those nine notes are not random.
The serial number that is also the number of the book
The concept is easy to explain and very hard to carry out. On all nine banknotes in a given copy, the last three digits of the serial number are identical. If the note inside the box cover ends in 082, then so does every note on the pages, from the one kroon note to the five hundred.
And those same three digits tell you which copy you are holding. The combination 001 marks the first book, 100 the hundredth. The copy number is not printed anywhere on its own. It is hidden in the banknotes themselves.
For a collector who has worked with serial numbers before, this is a familiar idea taken to its limit. A serial number makes every banknote a unique object, and here that uniqueness has been turned into the building block of the whole edition. We have written more about why serial numbers matter in banknote collecting in our guide to collecting banknotes pikemalt kirjutanud.
Six years and nine hundred banknotes
One hundred copies times nine banknotes comes to 900 notes. And not just any 900. Each one had to end in a particular combination of digits. The author began the search in 2018, right after his first kroon book appeared, and gathered the last of the notes only in 2024.
Six years meant reaching out to Estonian kroon collectors around the world, both acquaintances and complete strangers. Estonian newspapers helped track down the missing notes by publishing the author’s appeals.
The 50 kroon note proved the hardest of all. Eesti Pank issued that denomination only once, in 1994, which means there is simply nothing to choose from. A note with the right serial number is either in someone’s collection or it does not exist. The last missing piece was indeed a 50 kroon note ending in 100. Once it turned up, the book was complete.
The third book in a series
“The Era of Estonian Kroon” is not the author’s first attempt. In February 2018 he published “Originals of the Estonian Kroon Banknotes 1991–2007,” dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the Republic of Estonia and likewise printed in one hundred copies. He donated close to half of that run to Estonian museums, archives, libraries and schools, and to Estonian societies abroad from Sydney to Portland.
The choice of recipients followed the logic of the banknotes themselves. The five kroon note carries the chess player Paul Keres, who was born in Narva and lived in Pärnu, so a copy went to both the Narva Museum and the Pärnu Museum, and another to the Paul Keres Chess House in Tallinn. By the same principle, copies went to institutions that preserve the legacy of Kristjan Raud, Karl Ernst von Baer, Jakob Hurt, Anton Hansen Tammsaare, Rudolf Tobias, Lydia Koidula and Carl Robert Jakobson.
In 2019 came “The Book of Estonian Kroon Banknotes 1992–2010,” dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the Estonian song festivals and intended above all for notaphilists abroad. That edition also ran to one hundred copies.
What the book shows alongside the banknotes
Each banknote is accompanied by a short text in Estonian and English about the person and the object shown on the front and the back, together with the date it entered circulation, the numbering, the original measurements, the signatories and the printing office. The notes were designed by Vladimir Taiger and by Urmas Ploomipuu, who created the one and two kroon notes.
The comparison is the more interesting part. Next to the person on the front of each note is a photograph of them, and in the case of Karl Ernst von Baer a 19th century engraving. The buildings and natural landmarks on the reverse have been photographed as they look today, and here is what matters: from exactly the same angle as on the banknote. The photographs are by Kaupo Kalda and Peeter Tirman, whose work appears on the five kroon note.
Transparent interleaves made from shredded money
One of the most unusual details of the book is its interleaves. They are made from a decorative paper that contains fragments of shredded Estonian kroon banknotes.
The idea goes back to 2011, when kroons were being exchanged for euros and the withdrawn notes were destroyed. A paper shop in Tallinn obtained permission from Eesti Pank to use the shredded money, and the material was sent to Nepal, where it was cast into paper in three different thicknesses and dried under the local sun.
The same currency therefore appears in the book in two states at once: intact banknotes in the windows and destroyed kroons inside the paper.
Eight hundred movements of the hand
The book was printed at a family run printing house in the Kalamaja district of Tallinn. But printing is only part of the work here. The rest was done by hand.
Every banknote was placed by hand into a plastic sleeve and set one at a time into a window in the page. Eight notes across one hundred copies means that this movement was repeated 800 times. One more note went into each box cover, and the money paper lining inside the box was made by hand as well.
Two tables that turn the book into a reference work
There are two tables at the end of the book, and they give the edition a plainly practical value as well.
The first table brings together all 406 serial letters used on Estonian kroon banknotes, along with their years of issue, and it explains the concepts of replacement notes and notes marked PROOV (SPECIMEN). The kroon served as legal tender for almost 19 years, and Eesti Pank issued banknotes in nine of those years: 1991, 1992, 1994, 1996, 1999, 2000, 2002, 2006 and 2007. There were eight denominations: 1, 2, 5, 10, 25, 50, 100 and 500 kroons. Across those years and denominations, 406 different serial letters accumulated, and collecting them all is a pursuit in its own right.
The second table lists, for all one hundred copies, which denominations, years of issue and serial numbers are found in that particular book and in its box cover. It doubles as a record of where one portion of Estonia’s kroons currently sits.
Why a book like this matters
The Estonian kroon was Estonia’s official currency from June 20, 1992 until December 31, 2010. The euro entered circulation on January 1, 2011, and for the first two weeks both currencies were valid side by side. The end date in the book’s title is December 31, 2010, the last day on which the kroon was the only means of payment.
The kroon was pegged first to the German mark (1 DEM = 8 kroons) and from 2002 to the euro (1 EUR = 15.6466 kroons). But the exchange rate is not what people remember the kroon by. In 1992, the year the kroon arrived, the average gross monthly salary was 549 kroons. A year and a half later, in December 1993, it was already close to 1,306 kroons. By the comparison given in the book, a liter of gasoline cost 3 kroons, diesel 2 kroons, a taxi kilometer 2 kroons, a bus ticket 40 cents and a monthly newspaper subscription 16 kroons. Numbers like these are what keep the kroon alive in people’s memory.
The kroon itself was not an ordinary currency. Estonia’s monetary system rested on a currency board, which meant that every kroon liability of Eesti Pank had to be fully covered by freely convertible foreign assets. The backing came from gold that Eesti Pank had placed with foreign banks before 1940 and that had to be reclaimed through separate negotiations in 1992. The exchange rate of the kroon was never changed once during its eighteen and a half years, not even in the crisis of 2008 and 2009. The kroon left circulation at exactly the rate at which it had arrived.
Just as remarkable is who was left off the kroon. The eight denominations carry eight people: an artist, a natural scientist, a chess player, a folklorist, a writer, a composer, a poet and a publicist. There is not a single politician, head of state or military figure among them. The five kroon note is also the only banknote in the world to carry the portrait of a chess player.
At the same time, plenty of kroon banknotes survive. At the moment of the changeover, roughly 6.6 billion kroons in cash were in circulation, and according to Eesti Pank figures for the second quarter of 2026, 28.4 million banknotes (worth 36.6 million euros) and 319.3 million coins (worth 6.7 million euros) have still not come back. A single kroon is not rare and cannot be. What is rare is the combination: nine banknotes whose serial numbers agree in their last three digits. A set like that does not come about by chance, and it cannot be produced after the fact.
“The Era of Estonian Kroon” is an attempt to give the kroon era a physical shape, and to do it with real banknotes rather than reproductions. One hundred copies is a small number, and for many collectors this book will remain out of reach. The idea itself is something Estonian notaphily has not seen before: nine banknotes bound to one another by their serial numbers, with that same bond fixing the number of the book.
The denominations, serial letters and years of issue of Estonian kroon banknotes can also be found in our coin and banknote catalog.
Can the book still be bought?
As of today the book is still available. A run of one hundred copies never reaches store shelves, so anyone who wants one should contact the author, Toomas Kull, directly.