1000 Lei

This note belongs to the first emission series following Romania's Soviet-backed currency reform of August 1947, which abolished the old leu at a punishing conversion rate and wiped out much of the private savings that had survived the war. The 1948 issues were effectively instruments of the new People's Republic, issued under the authority of a central bank already being restructured along Soviet lines.

P#85 is among the scarcer denominations from this transitional period — the reform-era notes circulated briefly before another redenomination rendered them obsolete, limiting the window in which they saw meaningful use.