1 Leu Alexandru Marghiloman

Issued to mark the centenary of Alexandru Marghiloman's brief premiership, this coin exists because of one of the most politically toxic deals in Romanian history. In 1918, Marghiloman led the government that signed the Treaty of Bucharest with the Central Powers, surrendering territory and oil revenues after Romania's military collapse — a decision that made him broadly despised even as it kept the Romanian state nominally intact. He died in 1925 still largely unrehabilitated. The National Bank's decision to honor him a century later remains quietly controversial in Romanian historiography.