10 Manat

Azerbaijan's 1993 manat series was introduced as the country scrambled to establish a functioning currency after declaring independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. The manat had technically been introduced in 1992, but chronic shortages of printed notes meant Russian rubles continued to circulate alongside it well into 1993 — a dual-currency muddle that the National Bank struggled to resolve under severe inflationary pressure.

The series is printed on relatively thin stock, and watermark placement varies noticeably across the run, suggesting production under constrained conditions.