50 Lei Romanian Academy

Issued to mark the 140th anniversary of the Romanian Academy, founded in 1866 under the direct patronage of Carol I — then still ruling as Prince of Romania rather than king. The Academy was established partly as an instrument of cultural legitimacy, at a time when the Romanian principalities were nominally still under Ottoman suzerainty and needed to assert a distinct national and linguistic identity. Romanian philologists working under its roof produced the foundational normative grammar and orthographic standards that unified written Romanian across Moldavia and Wallachia.

KM#211 was struck in a modest proof issue with collector distribution through the NBR, not intended for circulation.