5000 Lei

Romania's aluminium-magnesium coinage of this period was a direct consequence of chronic inflation that had eroded the leu's purchasing power so severely that lower denominations had become functionally worthless. The 5000 Lei coin was among the highest-denomination circulating pieces issued before the 2005 redenomination, which replaced 10,000 old lei with a single new leu — effectively acknowledging that two decades of post-communist monetary policy had collapsed the currency by a factor of ten thousand.