5000 Rials Provisional Issue, Type 3

This provisional issue belongs to one of the stranger chapters in modern banknote history. Following the 1979 Revolution, the new Islamic Republic needed to suppress the Shah's image from circulating currency but lacked the infrastructure to immediately replace the entire series. The solution — applied across multiple denominations — was to overprint or obscure existing De La Rue-printed notes, creating a patchwork of provisional types while permanent designs were developed. Type 3 represents a distinct phase of that process, distinguishable from Types 1 and 2 by the specific method used to obliterate the royal imagery.

De La Rue retained the printing contract into the early revolutionary period, a pragmatic arrangement given the urgency.