Twenty-one years after the original 1995 lari issue, by 2015 the notes in circulation were visibly faded and the security standard had fallen behind the European norm. The National Bank, under its then-president Giorgi Kadagidze, commissioned a comprehensive refresh: the same nineteen-century-spanning cast of historical figures, but newly engraved, with modern security features, on a slightly larger paper format with proper provision for blind and partially sighted users. The five working denominations rolled out across three and a half years.
The designer was Bacha Malazonia, the Georgian artist who had also drawn the original lari notes of 1995. He had grown up at the same drawing board: his father Nodar Malazonia had won the 2005 commission for the 200 lari that NBG issued in 2007, and the two collaborated on that single denomination as Bacha was about to begin the upgrade. Across paper, that means every Georgian banknote currently legal tender was drawn by one of the two Malazonias. Bacha spent two years on the refresh.
The plates and printing were divided among the three banknote houses that produce most of the world's mid-rank state currencies: Giesecke+Devrient in Munich, Oberthur Fiduciaire in Paris, and De La Rue in Basingstoke. Each handled different denominations and security elements, a deliberate diversification to avoid single-supplier risk and to put the most modern features of each plant onto Georgian paper.
What you can feel and see
The blindmark is a system of horizontal raised lines on each edge of the obverse, identifying the denomination by touch. The count climbs with the value: one line on the 5 lari, two on the 10, three on the 20, four on the 50, five on the 100. So a Georgian can identify any note in a wallet without looking.
The hologram is a silver stripe on the lower denominations and a bicolour stripe on the 50 and 100. Each carries the portrait, the denomination numeral, the Lari sign, a map of Georgia, microtexts, and a denomination-specific motif that climbs an animal-and-emblem menagerie from lower to higher value:
- 5 lari: a lion
- 10 lari: a swallow, from Akaki Tsereteli's poem Spring
- 20 lari: a phaeton, the horse-drawn carriage of old Tiflis, the city where Chavchavadze edited his newspaper
- 50 lari: a griffin, heraldic, from the Tamarite reign
- 100 lari: a cluster of flowers, from Rustaveli's garden of metaphors
The optical variable ink on a small ornament shifts colour when the note is tilted. The 5 and 50 shift gold to green; the 10 green to blue; the 20 and 100 magenta to green. On the 50 and 100 the colour change carries a "rolling" wave effect across the ornament, the technological upgrade over the simple tilt-shift on the lower denominations.
Also on every note in the series: intaglio printing that you can feel under the fingertip on the portrait and edge ornaments; a watermark of the portrait and denomination visible against light; a latent image of the denomination that surfaces on tilt; a see-through image that aligns fragments from the two sides into a complete pattern against transmitted light; and red visible fibres embedded in the paper itself.
What machines look for
Beyond the eye and the fingertip, the notes carry the standard counterfeit-detection suite for a 2010s state currency: magnetic ink in the vertical serial number and key graphical detail; ultraviolet-fluorescent fibres in yellow and blue, plus a fluorescent serial number and on later notes a fluorescent denomination numeral; a phosphorescent square carrying the denomination that lights under UV; infrared-detectable graphical detail; microprinting of the issuer name, the figure's name and the denomination; an iridescent stripe along the length of the note; and a windowed vertical security thread with the denomination in cleartext.
The 10 lari, issued in 2019 as the last of the series, adds six of these features that the 2017 5 lari did not have, reflecting how fast the underlying technology was moving across the run.
Rollout
The series rolled out at four announcements:
- 1 February 2016: 20 lari and 50 lari
- 1 November 2016: 100 lari
- 1 September 2017: 5 lari
- 1 October 2019: 10 lari
Old and new notes circulate together. The 200 lari (Cholokashvili) and the unreleased 500 lari (David the Builder) were not part of the refresh and continue in the older design family.