5 Tögrög

The 1925 Mongolian tögrög series, of which this is part, was issued in the immediate aftermath of Mongolia's monetary reform — the tögrög replaced the Chinese-style lan and the various foreign currencies circulating in the country, including Russian roubles and Chinese dollars. The Mongolian Trade and Industrial Bank (Mongoltorgbank) was itself a Soviet-Mongolian joint institution, which explains why the entire series went straight to Goznak in Moscow rather than any other printer.

Goznak had been producing Soviet state currency since the early 1920s and brought that same intaglio infrastructure to this commission. The watermark is the only security feature — modest by contemporary European standards, but sufficient for a population where banknote literacy was still nascent.