20 Rials - Rezā Pahlavī 3rd. portrait, French text on reverse

Bank Melli Iran was established in 1927 to replace the British-controlled Imperial Bank of Persia as the country's note-issuing authority — a deliberate assertion of financial independence that took nearly a decade to fully execute in terms of note design and international printing contracts. De La Rue in London produced this series, which carried French text on the reverse as a concession to international commercial convention, French then functioning as the dominant language of regional trade and diplomacy across the Middle East.

The French-reverse format was dropped in subsequent issues, making this transitional series a fairly narrow window of production — roughly four years before wartime occupation reshuffled Iranian monetary administration entirely.