5000 Lei Ion Luca Caragiale

Issued to mark the 150th anniversary of Ion Luca Caragiale's birth, this commemorative was produced in extremely limited numbers — Romania's gold commemorative program of the early 2000s rarely exceeded a few hundred pieces per issue. Caragiale, born in 1852, remains the defining figure of Romanian dramatic literature, his satirical plays dissecting the corruption and absurdity of Romanian political life with a sharpness that earned him as many enemies as admirers during his lifetime.

He spent his final years in self-imposed exile in Berlin, embittered by plagiarism accusations leveled against him in Bucharest in 1901.