5 Lei - Mihai I

Romania switched to zinc coinage in 1942 as wartime metal requisitioning stripped the economy of copper and nickel — both redirected toward the German war machine under the terms of Romania's alliance with the Axis. Zinc was a stopgap, nobody's preferred coinage metal, and it showed: the alloy corrodes aggressively in any humidity, and surviving examples in problem-free condition are far less common than raw mintage figures suggest.

Mihai I had been restored to the throne in September 1940 after his father Carol II abdicated under pressure from the Iron Guard and the Wehrmacht's effective occupation of Romanian territory.