In celebration of the total solar eclipse of August 11, 1999, the

National Bank of Romania The National Bank of Romania ( ro, Banca Națională a României, BNR) is the central bank of Romania and was established in April 1880. Its headquarters are located in the capital city of Bucharest. The National Bank of Romania is responsible ...

(BNR) decided to issue a commemorative two thousand

Romanian lei The Romanian leu (, plural lei ; ISO 4217, ISO code: RON; numeric code: 946) is the currency of Romania. It is subdivided into 100 (, singular: ), a word that means "money" in Romanian language, Romanian. Etymology The name of the currency ...

banknote. This was the last solar eclipse of the millennium and was visible across southern

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...

. Since it was the last eclipse of the millennium, the denomination was chosen to be ''2000'' in respect to the upcoming year. These notes were issued as legal tender.

Design

The banknote was designed by the Romanian artist Nicolae Săftoiu, who is credited with the designs on which all Romanian banknotes printed since the 1989 Revolution are based.Ioana Moldoveanu
"The Money Maker"
''Vivid'', 18 August 2006. Retrieved 6 July 2009 In observance of the coming millennium, the obverse of the note displays a rendering of the

Solar System The Solar SystemCapitalization of the name varies. The International Astronomical Union, the authoritative body regarding astronomical nomenclature, specifies capitalizing the names of all individual astronomical objects but uses mixed "Solar S ...

viewed from afar, showing all of the planets revolving around the

Sun The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a nearly perfect ball of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core. The Sun radiates this energy mainly as light, ultraviolet, and infrared radi ...

. The reverse of the note displays a map outline of Romania with the colors schemed to match the colors of the Romanian flag. The map marks the main points where the solar eclipse was visible in a path moving along the map from west to east. The notes were printed using

offset printing Offset printing is a common printing technique in which the inked image is transferred (or "offset") from a plate to a rubber blanket and then to the printing surface. When used in combination with the lithographic process, which is based on t ...

, a commonly used printing technique where the inked image is transferred (or "offset") from a plate to a rubber blanket, then finally onto the printing surface.

Main security features

Security features include: *Transparent window - special in specifically polymer notes. It is an open, clear and plastic window in the note which is hard to counterfeit. *Shadow image (Watermark) - includes the BNR logo. This image can be seen when the banknote is held to the light and is embedded into the plastic note. *See-through registration - optical see-through image on each side of the note to make sure it was not printed using a counterfeit, in which case it would not match and align *Printed thread - a black thread that can be seen when the note is held up to the light. *Transmission hologram - The transparent window includes a transmission hologram depicting the Moon eclipsing the Sun.

Commemorative folder

In order to generate interest with currency collectors, the BNR also issued special commemorative folders with the banknotes. These were limited to 1 million pieces and each one contained a special, low-numbered banknote with the series''001A''.

History

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Two Thousand Lei (Romanian Banknote) Banknotes of Romania Two-thousand-base-unit banknotes