Greek drachma 5 drachmae) were issued from 1885, with the first 5-drachma notes being made by cutting 10-drachma notes in half. When Greece finally achieved its independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1828, the phoenix was introduced as the monetary unit; its use was short-lived, however, and in 1832 the phoenix was replaced by the drachma, adorned with the image of King Otto of Greece, who reigned as modern Greece's first king from 1832 to 1862. The drachma was divided into 100 lepta. In 2002 the drachma ceased to be legal tender after the euro, the monetary unit of the European Union,
Mark (currency) and could be transferred by endorsement, and were accepted as payment. They could also be redeemed. This currency proved to be very stable. Following German unification in 1871, the country adopted the German gold mark (officially known just as the "mark") as its currency in 1873. The name was taken from the mark banco. Initially, the coins and banknotes of the various predecessor currencies, such as the , the , and the guilder, continued to circulate, and were treated as fixed multiples of the new unit of account, similarly to the introduction period of the euro between 1999 and 2002.