10 Riels

Cambodia's 1987 currency issues were produced during the period of Vietnamese-backed People's Republic of Kampuchea governance, when the National Bank of Cambodia had only recently been reconstituted — money itself had been abolished entirely under the Khmer Rouge from 1975 to 1979. The riel was reintroduced in 1980, and this note belongs to the second generation of that reconstruction effort.

The print run of just over twelve million is modest for a low-denomination note, suggesting limited practical utility at a time when larger informal exchange networks and barter still competed with official currency in rural areas.