250 Līrah / Livres Nordic Gold thinner type

The Banque du Liban introduced this thinner Nordic Gold variant after the original 250 Livres type proved dimensionally incompatible with an increasing number of Lebanese vending machines and automated fare systems — a practical engineering fix rather than a monetary reform. Nordic Gold, the same manganese-brass alloy used in the EU's 10, 20, and 50 euro cent coins, was chosen partly for its resistance to decoloration and its machine-readability properties. Lebanon's currency had been pegged to the US dollar at 1,507.5 LBP since 1997, making questions of metal intrinsic value essentially irrelevant to the coin's economic function.