Issued for the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, this is one of several Romanian commemorative circulation coins produced in the mid-1990s during a period when the leu was losing value rapidly to inflation — the 10 lei denomination, once meaningful, had been so eroded by that point that a commemorative struck in nickel-plated steel rather than silver tells you something about the economic mood in Bucharest at the time.
Issued for the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, this is one of several Romanian commemorative circulation coins produced in the mid-1990s during a period when the leu was losing value rapidly to inflation — the 10 lei denomination, once meaningful, had been so eroded by that point that a commemorative struck in nickel-plated steel rather than silver tells you something about the economic mood in Bucharest at the time.