100 Lei Ion Creangă

Ion Creangă, the 19th-century Moldavian storyteller and Orthodox deacon whose autobiographical prose and folk-tale retellings became foundational texts of Romanian literature, spent much of his adult life in a converted railway car outside Iași after being suspended from the priesthood. The 2012 issue marks the 175th anniversary of his birth — one of several National Bank of Moldova commemorative gold programs using this precise 7.8g/.999 specification that began appearing in the late 2000s as part of a broader cultural identity series.