0.20 Talonas 'Coupon'

Lithuania's talonas coupons were introduced in May 1991 as a rationing supplement to the Soviet ruble, not a replacement — residents needed both to purchase goods. The system was designed partly to prevent Russians crossing the border to buy up subsidized Lithuanian consumer goods, a genuine and politically charged problem in the months following the independence declaration of March 1990.

Spindulys, a Kaunas printing house with roots in the interwar republic, was the natural choice — the Soviets had kept it running for decades producing state publications. Printing a nationally symbolic currency instrument there carried an obvious point.