2 Talonas

The talonas was never meant to last. Introduced in 1991 as a parallel coupon currency to ration access to goods during the Soviet collapse, it was explicitly transitional — a stopgap while Lithuania prepared to reintroduce the litas, which finally happened in June 1993. The 2 talonas sits within that narrow, chaotic window when Lithuania was technically sovereign but still economically enmeshed in the ruble zone.

At 60 x 40 mm, this is among the smallest denominations of a series already printed on the cheap. The watermark is the lone security feature — minimal even by the standards of provisional issues.