Tourists were fleeing the strong CHF, so Grächen printed its own “money”. Not satire—vouchers with swagger, accepted resort-wide for one glorious summer.
On 8 June 1996, the Valais resort of Grächen launched the Grächendollar—a locally accepted paper voucher in denominations of 1, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100. Visitors swapped Swiss francs for Grächendollars and got roughly 8–12% more purchasing power at participating businesses. The notes expired 30 October 1996; design by Peter Hauser & Rolf Lanz, printed by security printer Trüb AG, Aarau. Contemporary reports cheekily called it “legal currency in the resort” for the season—functionally a discount voucher that behaved like money.
Primary read: Geldscheine-Online; period coverage: Hotel Revue (1996); catalogue data: Schweizer-Geld.
Background
Picture Switzerland in the mid-1990s: the franc is so strong it could probably bench-press a Fiat Panda without breaking a sweat. For foreign tourists, every beer in the Alps felt like buying shares in Rolex. Resorts across Valais were panicking — fewer Germans on the slopes, fewer Dutch families at the fondue pot, and British holidaymakers discovering they could get twice the schnitzel in Austria for the same money. Something had to give.
Enter Grächen, a village perched above the Rhône Valley, with more postcard views than most countries. The locals knew they couldn’t convince the Swiss National Bank to devalue the franc (Zurich would sooner turn the Matterhorn upside down), so they did the next best thing: print their own money. Not Monopoly notes, mind you, but fully designed, professionally printed vouchers — the Grächendollars. For a few glorious months in 1996, the ski lifts, hotels, and cheese merchants of Grächen ran a parallel economy, where a tenner suddenly stretched just that little bit further.
The scheme wasn’t just financial engineering — it was cheeky theatre. Visitors swapped francs for Grächendollars and suddenly had 8–12% “bonus” value in their pocket, a bit like winning at blackjack before even reaching the table. Local businesses played along, accepting the notes with a smile, and the press lapped it up. One paper quipped that the Swiss franc had “foreign currency status” in Grächen, which is about as close to rebellion as a tidy alpine resort can get. And when the curtain fell on 30 October, the experiment ended — no collapse, no scandal, just a tourist town that dared to bend the rules and got away with it.
Design, printer & the set collectors chase
The Grächendollar kept a modern 140×70 mm format across all denominations. Design was by Peter Hauser and Rolf Lanz (Zürich), with production by Trüb AG, Aarau—a proper security printer, not a back-room copy shack. Issued 8 June 1996 (the 50-dollar note added on 15 Aug 1996), all pieces carried an expiry of 30 Oct 1996.
Tech Specs (at a glance)
- Unit & period
- Grächendollar (resort voucher), valid summer–autumn 1996
- Denominations
- 1, 5, 10, 20, 50 (added 15 Aug), 100
- Size
- 140 × 70 mm (all values)
- Design
- Peter Hauser & Rolf Lanz (Zürich)
- Printer
- Trüb AG, Aarau
- Issue date
- 8 Jun 1996 (main set) · 15 Aug 1996 (50)
- Expiry
- 30 Oct 1996
- Approx. print runs
- 1: 24,000 · 5: 16,000 · 10: 8,000 · 20: 8,000 · 50: 2,000 · 100: 8,000
Collector’s angle: the 50 is the key (lowest mintage); clean complete sets remain surprisingly affordable—until you insist on UNC 50s.
Quick Answers
Was the Grächendollar “legal tender”?
How did the discount work?
Which note is the toughest to find?
Did the idea survive?
Highlights Facts • Collector Tips • Did You Know?
Facts & Curiosities
- Issued 8 June 1996; expired 30 Oct 1996.
- Denoms: 1, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100 (50 added 15 Aug).
- Designers Hauser & Lanz; printer Trüb AG.
Collector Tips
- Hunt the 50 first; build outward to a full UNC set.
- Watch for intact point-of-sale flyers or resort maps listing acceptance—great provenance.
- Beware generic “souvenir” reprints; confirm printer credit Trüb AG, Aarau.
Did You Know?
- Press at the time said CHF had “foreign currency” status in the resort—marketing with a wink.
- Face-value discounting via local scrip has a century-old pedigree in tourist towns.
- Grächen still leans on destination vouchers—only now they’re digital.
