Banknote Database made by collectors, for collectors
A Very Lithuanian Journey
February 11, 2023 @ 22:40
The Lithuanian SSR embraced Gorbechev's glasnost and perestroika reforms in the 1980s to such an extent that it began to spin off into independence as soon as possible. Lithuanians, at some point in the late 80s while still part of the USSR, just decided to make their own currency and reinvigorate national symbols and heroes. They didn't bother to ask Moscow. Lithuania became the first of the Soviet republics to declare independence in 1990 and, amazingly, the currency design was already well underway. Having had to stare at banknotes depicting Lenin for decades they were eager to design and forge an independent path. This isn't an article about how Lithuania achieved independence from the Soviet Union, but it is a great story if you have time. The country's most recent banknote design lineage was born on 1st August 1989 during a meeting led by graphic designer Raimondas Miknevičius at the Academy of Fine Arts. Soon, a meeting was called for at the artists’ union where each attendant was handed a blank sheet of paper and asked to create a banknote design. About 80 applicants tried out. Soon, a group of about 10 artists, led by Miknevièius, secretly began designing the motifs of the future Litas. Artists Justin Tolvaišis, Rimantas Bartkus, Giedrius Jonaitis, and Rytis Valantinas discussed banknote themes. Should the old Grand Dukes or Kings be included? Historical monuments or coinage? Animals? Sketches were even sent from banknote designers in Australia. They finally decided on Lithuanian people from a more recent period of time that would remind the public that the country had recently been free, even within the living memory of some. Everyone knew that it was a very old country, but they needed to be reminded of how nebulous and fragile freedom could be. That, and from an engraving perspective, no one knew what the grand dukes actually looked like and there were actual photographs of the more modern national heroes. Hungary, when designing their banknotes in the 1990s, didn't notice this beforehand and put long dead ancient kings some of their denominations and had to use bank employees as models. The currency is called several things due to the nature of the Lithuanian language. Litu for singular, Litas, Litai or Litų in plural. For simplicity we’ll just use Litas here since that’s what the bank used in English. At right is an early sketch by Miknevičius courtesy of the country's national bank.
At the end of 1989 the "Lithuanian Republican Department of the State Bank of the Soviet Union Recommendations for the preparation of Lithuanian Money Draft Projects" document was released to prepare for creating new Litas. I wrote out the name of the entire document to reiterate that no one had yet told them they could be independent, they just sort of ran with it. The initial goal was to start with denominations of 1, 3, and 5 litas - which would match Soviet ruble denominations. That was quickly thrown out, because 'western' countries didn't make banknotes in denominations of 3. A debate arose over including emigrants on the money, and was ultimately decided that it would be okay for Steponas Darius and Stasys Girénas chosen to be on the 10 to symbolize Lithuania's connection with her diaspora.
A retired De La Rue engraver told me once that almost every country that became independent during the collapse of the USSR and Yugoslavia wanted their money to look like Deutschmarks. Croatia was especially successful in that regard, even using the same ink. Lithuania was especially interested in Deutschmarks as a model and tried G+D in Germany for printing services and sent representatives who came back with a small 4 page report that said G+D would print them essentially security-free notes with some financing from Deutsche Bank, but they would not be able to be printed for a while as Germany was busy re-uniting. The Lithuanians then went to essentially every security printer in Europe from De La Rue (who wanted to reprint 1922 banknotes using old plates), to Tumba Bruk, to Oreli Füssli. The idealistic Lithuanians were, let's say, crushed at the cost to print not-awful banknotes. They finally found partners in Oberthur of France and in the United States Bank Note Corp. (USBNC), later renamed the American Banknote Company (ABC)*. Promised by Oberthur and ABC were offset printing on the lower denominations and intaglio on the higher ones, a uniform non-colored watermark, microtext, UV fibres, high quality cotton paper, and a security thread for each note. Coins were produced for the lowest denominations (1, 2, and 5 litas) to be printed as banknotes later. On December 20, 1990 Jeremy Willings of ABC and Vilius Baldišius of the Bank of Lithuania signed the country's first banknote contract. The country would receive 260 million banknotes for about 6.6 million US Dollars financed mostly by a bank in Sweden. Then it all spectacularly fell apart.
Oberthur ended up “stealing” the banknote designs and keeping them until 1997, presumably under pressure from the French government to not anger the Soviets. There’s a whole sub-story about the KGB trying to foil Lithuania’s banknote printing at every turn, along with any other national symbols. From America, Lithuania received the first litas banknotes in November of 1991. The original contract with ABC had stated that Lithuanian representatives could reject any banknotes that did not meet the contract criteria, but on November 4, 1991, an amendment was made negating that part of the contract so ABC could send Lithuania literally anything and they'd have to accept and pay for it. The banknotes received from the Americans were garbage and didn't include almost any of the promised security features, essentially just being wet offset prints on cheap paper (for the lower three denominations). Some of them even had matching serial numbers. Bank President Vilius Baldišius was hauled before a tribunal and said he could do whatever he wanted with his bank and it wasn't the government's job to police how secure the banknotes were (the PM fired him and he was charged with incompetence). One million of them went missing, the Lithuanians stopped paying the Americans, and the Swedish bank was accused of skimming off the top by holding the Lithuanian money in an interest free account. It was a huge national scandal. In 1992 the banknotes were prone to forgery and temporary coupons called Talonas kept having to be issued. Having animals on them, the coupons got the nickname "animals". The country decided to reject half the banknotes printed at ABC and not pay for them. The government sued the ABC and eventually settled in 2000, not getting their money until 2004 after more lawsuits. The currency surrendered to the Euro in 2015, and Lithuanians on social media seemed to have a mixed view of the Litas at the time. While some maintain that it was an important symbol of Lithuanian independence, others rightly pointed out it was always pegged to some other currency, and had no symbolic independence at all.
The lower denominations were all designed by young artist Giedrius Jonaitis, after others tasked with designing certain denominations dropped out or emigrated. Jonaitis would go on later to redesign several that others had originally worked on (the artist would later host an exhibition where he made banknotes into sausages and generally dismisses his banknote design work as not super important).
The security features on the series were continually updated, which wasn’t surprising given the absolute bottom-of-the-barrel start they got.
1991 - offset printing, fourdrinier type watermark, micro print, letterpress serial
1993 - Intaglio printing, security threads, machine readable features, latent imagery
1997 - 3 Color intaglio printing, 4 color rainbow offset printing front and 3 back, multi tone cylinder watermark, security thread, hand engraved portraiture, registration marks, blind intaglio, hologram strip (foil)
1999 - 3 color intaglio printing both sides, raised intaglio printing, security thread demetalized. STEP - shimmery twin effect protection. Microperforation
Here's a look at a selection of Lithuanian notes and their evolutions.
The 10 litas note was the lowest denomination at the first public release in 1993 and is probably the most commonly remembered design, by Jonaitis. The theme celebrates pilots Steponas Darius and Stasys Girénas who attempted to fly from New York to Lithuania, making as far as modern day Poland before crashing and dying. The wreckage of the plane, called Lituanica, is on display in the building on the back of the 20 litas note. The first printings in 1991 and 1993 were done in America and were essentially garbage. They were so bad that in January, 2005 the bank of Lithuania took every remaining 1991 note and destroyed them save for 20,000 of each for numismatic purposes. The first release of the 10 litas note essentially was a grey or light blue banknote with several typos and very little in the way of visual elements. In local slang, the note was called a “žydras” which means literally “light blue” but had a secondary meaning as an insult for gays. The two pilots engraved at the center obverse, and on the reverse the plane Lituanica flying over clouds in the Atlantic between outlines of North America and Europe. The coat of arms sits at the top right on the reverse and is displayed on every Lithuanian banknote, almost. The next edition, printed in 1997, was reworked at De La Rue in England and was much better in terms of design and quality. The pilots were re-engraved and moved to the right side of the obverse with Girénas’ nose positioned where it should be, new laurel frames and many more security elements. The reverse kept the same elements but enhanced the map in the background and added a starburst effect from behind the clouds. Instead of greyscale we get an orange-tan-purple color scheme. Production was moved to Oreli Fūssli in Switzerland for the 2001 printing and was totally re-engraved from earlier editions. Girénas’ nose is weirdly offset from the rest of his face and it’s hard to unsee. The Swiss added a border of art deco propellers and more color along with microprinting throughout. Darius’ cap now reads out the word “Milwaukee” for the American city along with the patch of of an obscure airport near Chicago where he used to fly. The latest editions featured the Lituanica as a registration device in silhouette and complex guilloche patterns to soften edges and make the notes harder to copy. Airplane like shapes pop out of a grid situated along the border of the note. In its final form, the 10 litas note became probably the best designed and most recognized of all of the country’s paper money.
The original 1991 American print is shown above, with the De La Rue revision shown below.
The final Swiss version is shown below, along with several details - and a nose that just doesn't look right.
"Milwaukee" along with Art Deco propeller forms creating a frame from the note.
Lithuania’s 1 Litu banknote only ever got one printing, in 1994 at De Le Rue. The country flirted with denominations of 1, 2, and 5 that year and then never printed any again. Designed by Jonaitis, it features the several face of writer Žemaitė, her full name was Julija Tagantienė. In the 90s she had the distinction of “the cheapest woman in Lithuania” as a local joke. Originally the banknote was to have an anonymous cheery peasant on it and was designed by Raimondas Miknevičius, the initial leader of the design group. The change of subject from the happy peasant to Žemaitė’s very severe expression gave the note a very different take on Lithuanian ruralism. The reverse features Palūšė church and bell tower, which had nothing to do with the author on the front and were instead inherited from the earlier design with the happy peasant. Religion and Christian crosses feature heavily on Lithuanian banknotes, and are likely a reaction to the atheism encouraged during the Soviet occupation.
The 20 litas banknote was designed by Justin Tolvaišis. Like the 10, the first two releases were printed by ABC in America. The note features poet and priest Jonas Mačiulis-Maironis and nicknamed by the public a “Maironis”. Initially, Tolvaišis chose a decorative border that include three bird symbols, associated with Maironis, along with flowers to frame the portrait and other elements. The reverse features the Museum of History in Kaunas and the statue of Victory. Frustratingly, the designed chose to highlight the shadowed part of the building since of showing the famous facade. The shadows make the reverse seem darkened. The artist Jonaitis was invited to redesign the note before it was sent to Switzerland for printing in 2001 and rearranged some elements. The design the reverse was brightened up and the statue of victory was moved from the far left side of the note to the center right. The building itself was elongated to fill more of the space allotted. The border was changed to be more simplistic and the colors and security features were enhanced. A book with a quill pen was added as a registration device to highlight Maironis’ role as a poet.
The engraving even includes Maironis' glasses wire from the source imagery.
Below, the second reverse iteration of the 20 is shown below. There are still shadows and wet offset but it's set-up is better.
Artist Rimvydas Bartkus designed the 50 Litas banknote which features nationalist hero Jonas Basanavičius. Originally in exile, Basanavičius returned to Lithuania in 1905 and led the charge for independence from Russia in 1918. He lived in Vilnius for many years so the inclusion of Vilnius cathedral on the reverse is fitting. Original sketches added more religious imagery around the the cathedral but was dropped for space reasons. The reverse engraving was redone for every single printing of the note and so three separate images can be studied. The original American printing had heavy shadows and was printed in black and yellow. It lacked a lot of detail and was
demanded by the bank to be redrawn. It was, an in 1993 the same view was shown in intaglio with more defined features. Finally it was decided to rework the note completely and in 1998 the task was given over to the German firm Giesecke & Devrient. Of course the artist Jonaitis redesigned it from the ground up and the reverse scene was completely changed. Instead of barren streets around a cathedral, the same area is shown from a different perspective showing the “Sacred Valley” softened by trees and with the “Three Crosses” monument added at the far right. It was greatly increased in size for the banknote view, it’s not that big. The monument is shown at the left for reference. 
The 100 litas banknote was design by artist Rytis Valantinas and was given the responsibility to design the portrait of Simonas Daukantas. Born in 1793, Daukantas is the farthest back in the country’s history the banknote iconography goes. Daukantas was the first author of the History of Lithuania in the native language. During the time of initial design, he was meant to be on a 500 litas banknote, the highest, but this was changed changed and he appeared on the 100. Heavily reliant on green and orange, the reverse features a beautiful vaguely isometric view of Vilnius University, where Daukantas studied and taught. The engraving is based on a painting by Jonas Zenkevičius, taken while the subject was still alive. In the initial printings, which copied the painting, Daukantas is pointed towards the viewer’s right, and away from the important elements on the rest of the obverse. They eventually mirrored him. During the Oreli Fūssli redesign process in 1999-2000 Valantinas reworked many elements, and for some reason he changed the coat of arms. The arms normally features a mounted knight on a rearing horse, but Valantinas decided to show the horse at full gallop with a diagonal sword above. This is why it can be said that the coat of arms could be found on almost all of the Litas banknotes, because this one features a modified and unofficial version.
Below the two versions of the Valantinas portrait on the 100 litas banknote can be seen, flipped on the newer version.
The beautiful drawing of Vilnius University on the reverse features microprinting along the rooftops of each building.
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Of the 10 people on Lithuanian banknotes, only 3 were not alive during the 1920s, a time period where Lithuania was briefly free and independent. Religion is also featured, of the notes issued after 2001 all of them except the 10 litas had some kind of Christian elements. The iconography was simple and supplied the public with a reminder of the country’s period of independence without any pesky Soviet or Russian things getting in the way.
*The USBNC and the ABC changed names and had several divisions so for the purposes of simplicity the company is referred to as "ABC" throughout.