History of coins in Romania

The earliest documented currency in the Romanian territory was an 8-gram silver drachma, issued by the Greek polis (πολις, city) Histria (in the region that is now the Dobruja) in the year 480 BC.

Early Wallachian coins bear the coat of arms of the Basarab dynasty and have written with Latin script Transalpina (an alternative name of Wallachia).

The earliest standard in Wallachia was the perper, derived from the Byzantine gold coin hipérpyron, which was replaced in the 15th-century Italian system of the ducat and the florin.

Many different coins circulated in the Romanian lands over the course of centuries: Turkish thalers, Hungarian and Austrian guilders (known in Romania as galbeni), zloti, Russian carboave, Venerian zecchini, over 100 currencies in all.

As a recognition of unification, prince Alexandru Ioan Cuza wanted to mint a coin, to be called români or romanat following Ion Heliade Rădulescu.