20 Rials Rezā Pahlavī

Bank Melli Iran was established in 1928 specifically to displace the British-controlled Imperial Bank of Persia as the sole note-issuing authority — this 20 Rials issue, printed just four years later, belongs to the first generation of notes produced under that new national mandate. The American Bank Note Company was a deliberate choice: Reza Shah's government wanted a printer with no European imperial associations, and ABNC's New York operation had the intaglio capacity to match the quality Iranians had come to expect from Imperial Bank issues.

Pick 20 is among the earlier denominations from this foundational series and is genuinely scarce in circulated grades, partly because the 1932–1934 emissions were relatively small runs.