50 Rials - Rezā Pahlavī 1st. portrait

The American Bank Note Company produced this note for Bank Melli Iran shortly after the bank's establishment in 1928 — Iran's first fully state-owned central bank, founded specifically to displace the British-controlled Imperial Bank of Persia from its note-issuing monopoly. The political motivation behind the commission was pointed: placing the contract with an American firm rather than a British one was itself a statement.

Pick 21 belongs to the earliest series issued under Reza Shah's monetary modernization program. The rial itself had only just been formally established as Iran's currency unit in 1932, replacing the qiran, which makes this among the first notes denominated in the new system.