1 Leu

This issue belongs to the first wave of coinage produced under Romania's newly declared People's Republic, proclaimed in December 1947 after King Michael I was forced to abdicate under Soviet pressure. The National Bank was simultaneously nationalized that same year, and the 1949–1951 coinage series was among the earliest physical expressions of the new order — a monetary reset following the catastrophic hyperinflation that had devastated the leu through the mid-1940s.

The nickel-brass composition was a deliberate austerity choice, consistent with Soviet-bloc monetary practice of the period.