Middle East NE Cheque/Check (Cancelled)—Type 116174—5000000 Rials—Yellow

Cancelled bank cheque which circulated like currency.

Colors: yellow, ochre

Pictured: a Symbol of Authority

The architectural vignette depicts the historic headquarters of Bank Melli Iran, located on Ferdowsi Street in central Tehran. 

• Monumental early 20th-century institutional architecture, associated with the founding phase of Iran’s modern banking system
• Strong vertical massing with recessed arches and geometric window bays
• Stylized rather than perfectly literal rendering—cleaned lines, symmetrical emphasis, and idealized proportions typical of Iranian cheque-note design
• Functions visually as a symbol of state finance and institutional authority, rather than a specific lived urban scene

Design and Colors

Design character

Where the lower denominations feel aqueous and bureaucratic, this one shifts into something warmer—almost archival, like a document that has already aged the moment it was printed. The gold field suggests value without using metallic ink, while the building sits inside its circular frame like a commemorative seal. Then the system breaks: blue ink signatures slash across the surface, stamps land slightly off-axis, and the red thread cuts straight through it all. It’s a negotiation between authority and use—between something issued with ceremony and something handled, signed, and pushed through a desk.

Primary palette:

• Dominant golden ochre / warm yellow field, shifting from pale parchment tones to deeper amber
• Fine horizontal linework creates a subtle aged-paper effect, especially in the upper fields

Secondary tones:

• Soft beige and cream underlayers, giving the note a warmer, almost archival character compared to the cooler denominations
• Light olive undertones in guilloché areas, adding depth without breaking palette cohesion

Accent structure:

• Vertical red security thread segments, sharply contrasting with the warm background
• Blue ink signatures and stamps, cutting across the composition with strong chromatic dissonance
• Black serial numbers at the base, grounding the design with mechanical precision

Ornamental system:

• Dense guilloché rosette at center, rendered in warm yellow linework with radial symmetry
• Right-side column of repeating “5 000 000” numerals, forming a structured numeric lattice
• Floral corner elements and scrollwork in fine-line engraving, slightly darker than the base field for legibility

Color hierarchy:

1. Golden ochre (dominant identity field)
2. Beige / cream (structural depth)
3. Olive-tinted guilloché (texture layer)
4. Red (security interruption)
5. Blue (human intervention: signatures, stamps)
6. Black (machine-readable elements)

About Melli Cheques, and 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