100 Manat

Azerbaijan's first manat series launched in 1992–93 as the country exited the ruble zone, and this note belongs to the transitional period when the National Bank was issuing currency for a state barely a year old and simultaneously managing an active armed conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh. Hyperinflation eroded purchasing power so severely across the mid-1990s that the 100 manat, nominally a mid-range denomination at issue, had become effectively worthless in daily transactions well before the series was retired.

The 1999 replacement by a revalued manat series rendered most circulating stock obsolete almost overnight. Notes that survived were largely low-grade, heavily used examples — clean surviving specimens are somewhat harder to find than the common catalog status suggests.