10 Dinara, Republika Hrvatska, 1991

This note belongs to the improvised currency of Croatia's first independent year. With the republic's 1991 secession from Yugoslavia and the outbreak of war, the Yugoslav dinar had to go, and a transitional Croatian dinar took its place. The notes are headed REPUBLIKA HRVATSKA and dated 8 October 1991, each carrying the single signature of the Minister of Finance (MINISTAR FINANCIJA), Jozo Martinović.

The 10-dinar note shares the common design of the series, printed domestically by the Zrinski printing house in Čakovec. Its obverse bears the portrait of Ruđer Bošković (Ruggiero Boscovich, 1711–1787) — the Ragusan physicist, astronomer and mathematician — framed by the geometric and optical diagrams of his science; the reverse, read vertically, shows Zagreb Cathedral. The paper is watermarked but has no security thread, reflecting how fast and simply the issue had to be produced.

Intended only to bridge the gap, the dinar was eroded by inflation and withdrawn in 1994 when the kuna became Croatia's permanent money at 1,000 dinars to the kuna. The surviving notes are a memento of a currency that lasted barely three years.