Catalog
See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration!
or register with email
Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!
5 Lei
| Issuer | Banca Națională a României |
|---|---|
| Year | 1914-1929 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Size | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Log in to see details |
| Printer | Log in to see details |
| Designer(s) | Costin Petrescu |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | A standing female figure in traditional Romanian folk costume, holding a distaff, occupies the left vignette within an ornate guilloche border, with two circular watermark windows flanking the central design. The denomination '5 LEI' is printed in large numerals at centre, below the date '25 Martie 1920' and the bank title 'BANCA NATIONALA A ROMANIEI' across the top. The Romanian royal coat of arms appears at upper right, with three signature lines for the Governor, Director, and Cashier below the central vignette. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | BANCA NATIONALA A ROMANIEI 25 Martie 1920 5 LEI GOVERNOR DIRECTOR DIRECTORUL CASEI |
| Reverse description | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Signature(s) | Log in to see details |
| Protection type | Log in to see details |
| Protection description | Log in to see details |
| Variants | Log in to see details |
| Comments |
Pick 19 spans a fifteen-year window — 1914 through 1929 — that encompasses Romania's entry into the First World War, the catastrophic German occupation of Bucharest in 1916–1918, and the subsequent hyperinflationary pressures of the early 1920s. Notes of this type circulated through all of it. The occupying German and Austro-Hungarian forces actually established a rival issuing body, the Banca Generală Română, specifically to drain Romanian monetary reserves; BNR issues remained the nationalist alternative, and ordinary Romanians distinguished sharply between the two.
Costin Petrescu was primarily a muralist and academic painter — his involvement in banknote design was relatively rare, and his work here predates the large-scale decorative commissions he would later receive for public buildings in interwar Bucharest.