20 Leva - Boris III

Bulgaria's entry into a German-aligned rearmament economy forced a rapid overhaul of its coinage in the late 1930s. Silver was pulled from circulation and replaced with base-metal issues, and this 1940 copper-nickel piece belongs to that transitional wave — a direct consequence of wartime material priorities rather than any domestic monetary reform.

Boris III would be dead within three years, under circumstances that remain disputed. He died in August 1943, shortly after a meeting with Hitler, and the cause — whether assassination, cardiac event, or altitude sickness from an unauthorized flight — has never been definitively established.