1000 Lei

The plate for this note was engraved by Paul Dujardin and designed by Georges Duval at the Imprimerie Nationale in Paris — a relationship between the BNR and the French national press that predated WWI and survived it entirely intact. What that continuity obscures is the extraordinary political turbulence the successive signature combinations reflect: the 1915–1916 dates fall during Romania's tense neutrality period, while the 15.11.1917 issue date places that note squarely inside the Moldavian rump state, with Bucharest under German occupation and the bank operating from Iași.

Twenty-one distinct issue dates across two decades make P#23 one of the most signature-varied Romanian notes of the period. The 1931 dates — the last gasp of this design — coincide with the immediate aftermath of Romania's banking crisis triggered by the collapse of Banca Marmorosch Blank.