1 Rial

Yemen's Central Bank issued this series through a period of considerable political fragility for the Yemen Arab Republic — the early 1980s saw ongoing border tensions with the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen to the south, and currency confidence was correspondingly brittle. Thomas De La Rue's involvement guaranteed technical consistency, though the 1 Rial denomination was effectively the workhorse of small rural transactions in a predominantly cash economy with limited banking penetration outside Sana'a.

The P#16B designation distinguishes it from earlier signature varieties in the same design run — a cataloging distinction that matters more than it might appear, since different signatories reflect different periods of central bank governance through a politically turbulent decade.