in December 1917, UNR introduced karbovanets as a stopgap measure, until hryvnia was installed as an official currency according to the law of 1 March 1918, at an exchange rate of 2 hryvnias to 1 karbovanets emitted in 1917 (i.e. 25 and 50 karbovanets), and defined by law to be convertible to gold at a rate of 1 hryvnia = 8.712 dolya (0.383328 grams, or about 0.0123243 oz t). Hryvnia was additionally subdivided into 100 shah. However, since karbovanets was circulating at par with the Russian ruble/Soviet ruble until late 1918, it could not be worth more than these issues, which were depreciating due to hyperinflation. While legislative efforts to limit or outright ban the usage of Russian currencies in Ukraine were made, they only had limited success. Aggravating the situation was the lack of gold reserves. This meant that hryvnia was also losing value by hundreds of per cent per year, and even though Ukrainian currency was spared from the worst of the hyperinflation, maintaining the gold standard proved unfeasible. 1918 State Credit Notes The law of 1 March 1918 envisaged printing denominations of 2, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 500 and 1000 hryvnias, which were to be called State Credit Notes (). Accordingly, on 24 March 1918, UNR signed an agreement by which banknotes were to be printed by the Reichsdruckerei, the German state banknote printer. There were some problems with the contractor, however. Despite ordering 16,000,000 5-hryvnia notes and 9,000,000 20-hryvnia notes, these were not printed; 50-hryvnia notes were not contracted at all. Additionally, all of the submitted designs of Ukrainian hryvnia banknotes have been tampered with in Germany, changing colours without designers' or government's permission. Heorhiy Narbut, who drew the design of the 500-hryvnia note, has lamented its poor quality of execution. The Ukrainian State decided to forego 5-hryvnia and 20-hryvnia bills in favour of a new denomination of 2,000 hryvnia, which, however, the Ukrainian government was formally not authorised to issue. All banknotes contain the following text on the reverse: " ~ ~ ", as mandated by law (here referred to as "State Credit Note notice"). Additionally, the gold standard notice was also printed, which read: "(One) hryvnia contains 8.712 dolya of pure gold" (). All banknotes had anti-counterfeiting protections, such as a watermark and guilloche pattern. State Treasury Notes On 30 March 1918, the Central Council of Ukraine approved a release of 100 million