Middle East NE Cheque/Check (Cancelled)—Type 112154—5000000 Rials—Yellow

A 3,000-year-old Mud-Brick Fortress, UNESCO World Heritage

Front: Arg-e Bam (Citadel of Bam), an ancient mud-brick fortress in Kerman Province, southeastern Iran. One of the largest adobe structures ever built, it dates to the Achaemenid period (6th–4th century BC) and was continuously inhabited until the early 19th century. At its peak, the citadel housed a garrison of 12,000 soldiers and sheltered a city of up to 13,000 residents within its 6-meter-thick walls. A devastating earthquake on 26 December 2003 (magnitude 6.6) killed approximately 26,000 people and reduced 80% of the citadel to rubble. International restoration efforts followed, and Arg-e Bam was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2004 — the same year reconstruction began.

About Iran Cheques Issued by Commercial Banks

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Iran found itself in an awkward monetary moment. Prices were rising quickly, but the Central Bank had not yet issued very high-denomination banknotes. Introducing new notes was not just a technical matter of design and printing; it carried political weight. Large denominations are read by the public as an admission that "inflation has become permanent". For that reason, approvals were cautious and often slow, involving both the central bank and Parliament, where there was reluctance to visibly normalize inflation by putting million-rial figures into everyday wallets.

Guaranteed cheques offered a quieter workaround. Issued by Bank Melli Iran and other banks, they were classified as banking instruments rather than legal-tender banknotes. This distinction mattered. A cheque could be framed as a practical tool for moving large sums—temporary, transactional, and reversible—rather than as a public statement about the currency itself. Designing them was not necessarily faster than engraving banknotes, but they required far fewer political approvals and avoided the symbolic moment of announcing a new denomination to the public. In practice, they filled the gap that official banknotes had not yet crossed.

For people on the ground, the experience was simple. A Bank Melli guaranteed cheque could be withdrawn from a branch and passed directly from hand to hand to pay for a car, settle a wholesale deal, or close a property transaction. As long as the cheque kept circulating, it usually remained unpunched and unstamped, aside from signatures or handwritten notes. The familiar holes, cancellation stamps, and bank markings typically appeared only at the end of its life, when someone finally deposited it, redeemed it for cash, or when banks cleared and retired it internally. At that point it was marked to prevent reuse, then normally destroyed—one reason surviving examples are so scarce today.

Their denominations—from 200,000 to 5,000,000 rials—capture a moment when everyday economic life had already outgrown the official banknote structure, and the banking system quietly improvised a solution. For collectors, the wear, punches, and stamps are not flaws but evidence: these cheques were handled, trusted, and used as money until the moment they finally returned to the banking system.

Identifying Bank and Series on an Iran Cheque or Melli Cheque

The series and bank of issuance for Melli Cheques and the multibank Iran cheques can be identified by the first six numbers of the MICR line (the line printed at the bottom of the cheque towards the left). 

Note that this does not apply to

• Bank Melli Griffin series which bears serial numbers and no MICR line
• Iran Cheques since 2008 which are issued by the Central Bank of Iran

Position 1, 2, 3: cheque series

• Griffin series: none (no MICR line)
• Iran Cheque 2nd Issue: 112
• Melli Cheque 116

Positions 4 and 5: bank

• 12 Bank Mellat
• 13 Bank Refah
• 14 Bank Maskan
• 15 Bank Sepah
• 16 Bank Keshavarzi (Agricultural Bank)
• 17 Bank Melli Iran
• 18 Bank Tejarat
• 19 Bank Saderat Iran
• 20 Bank Tuseh-e Saderat e Iran

Position 6: denomination

• 0 — 200,000 rials
• 1 — 500,000 rials
• 2 — 1,000,000 rials
• 3 — 2,000,000 rials
• 4 — 5,000,000 rials

The Color Palette

The color palette for this 5,000,000 Iranian Rial note is dominated by warm, earthy tones, typical of many high-denomination security documents. It uses a mix of subtle gradients to prevent counterfeiting. Here are the primary colors:

• Sandstone & Ochre: The most prominent colors, especially in the central area and the illustration of the Arg-e Bam citadel. These shades evoke the mud-brick architecture of the desert.
• Muted Salmon & Rose: You’ll see these pinkish-orange hues in the radial guilloché patterns (the circular "sunburst" lines) and the borders.
• Slate Blue & Teal: These are used for the bank’s name ("Bank Sepah"), the stamp-like text on the left, and parts of the intricate background linework.
• Pale Cream/Ivory: The base paper color, which provides the high-contrast background for the security features.
• Chocolate Brown: Used for the fine-line detailing in the citadel illustration and the serial numbers.
• Lavender/Pale Purple: Subtle accents in the top and bottom security bands.

The overall effect is a "dusty desert" aesthetic, combining sun-bleached yellows with soft reddish-pinks and cooling blue accents.