500 Lei Pattern

Romania's mid-1990s bimetallic experiments came during a period of severe monetary instability following the collapse of communism, when the leu was being eroded by triple-digit inflation. Several denominations were prototyped in bimetallic format before the National Bank settled on which values warranted the added production cost. The 500 Lei denomination was ultimately not issued for circulation in this configuration — this pattern represents one branch of that decision process.

Stamb#P348.3 denotes a specific variant within the pattern sequence, implying at least two other die or compositional trials exist for this type.