5000 Rials Islamic Revolution

This note bridges an awkward institutional moment: the Islamic Republic inherited printing contracts with Thomas De La Rue that had been arranged under the Shah, and early post-revolutionary issues continued to use the same British printer while the new government worked to establish its own security printing capacity. The ideological tension of relying on a London firm for sovereign currency during a period of sharp anti-Western rhetoric was apparently subordinated to practical necessity.

The P#133 series ran from 1981 through 1983, overlapping with the Iran-Iraq War and the severe foreign exchange pressures that followed. Notes from this window were heavily circulated and are frequently encountered with significant handling wear.