1000 Leva Zlatni

Bulgaria's post-WWI finances were in serious disarray by 1920 — the country had backed the losing side, the Treaty of Neuilly in 1919 imposed heavy reparations, and the lev was under sustained inflationary pressure. The 1000 Leva Zlatni denomination, with "zlatni" meaning gold, was nominally pegged to a gold standard that had long since ceased to function in practice. The designation was aspirational accounting, not convertibility.

Bradbury Wilkinson's intaglio work on Bulgarian issues of this period is technically accomplished. The London connection was fairly common for Balkan central banks that lacked domestic printing capacity adequate for high-denomination security paper.