50 Rials Provisional Issue; Type 1

REVOLUTIONARY OVERPRINTS 

After the Islamic Revolution of 1978-79, the Iranian government used numerous overprints on existing stocks of unissued paper money to obliterate Shah Pahlavi’s portrait. There were many unauthorized and illegal crude stampings such as a large “X” and hand obliterations used by zealous citizens witch circulated freely, but only three major types of official overprints were used by the Government.

PROVISIONAL ISSUES 

All provisional government overprints were placed on existing notes of Shah Pahlavi already printed. Overprinting was an interim action meant to discredit and disgrace the deposed Shah as well as to publicize and give credence to the new Islamic Republic. The overprints themselves gave way to more appropriate seals and emblems, changes of watermarks and finally to a complete redesigned of all denominations of Notes. In all cases the Shah’s portr. was covered by an arabesque design. Eight different styles and varieties of this ovpt. were used. Watermark ovpt., when used, are either the former Iranian national emblem of Lion and Sun or the calligraphic. Persian text JUMHURI-YE-ISLAMI-YE-IRAN (Islamic Republic of Iran) taken from the obverse of the country’s new emblem. All ovpt. colors are very dark and require careful scrutiny to distinguish colors other than black.

Ovpt type B on P#111a (black) / P#111b (green)