Catalog
10.000 Rials
| Issuer | Bank Melli Iran |
|---|---|
| Year | 1980 |
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| Composition | Cotton paper |
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| Obverse description | The face of this trial note is printed on a pale green guilloche underprint ground. At upper centre, a rectangular blue panel carries the bank title in white Arabic script. To the left, a circular seal of Bank Melli Iran appears, while to the right a circular emblem of the Islamic Republic of Iran is present. The central vignette presents an intaglio rendering of a multi-storey modernist building, understood to be the Bank Melli Iran headquarters, executed in blue-grey tones. Handwritten notations and an authorisation inscription in Persian script are overlaid across the centre of the note, consistent with a trial or specimen approval process. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | بانک ملی ایران |
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| Comments |
P#126A belongs to the first post-revolutionary overprint series, in which the new Islamic Republic dealt with an awkward practical problem: warehouses full of late-Pahlavi banknotes bearing the Shah's portrait. Rather than destroy the stock outright, Bank Melli applied overprints to render the royal imagery politically acceptable — or at least tolerable — for immediate circulation. The 10,000 Rial denomination was the highest in everyday use, which made managing its imagery a matter of some urgency.
The overprint solution was stopgap by design. Within a few years the series was replaced by entirely new issues, so P#126A had a short working life.