1/2 Baht - Rama IV

Rama IV — Mongkut — authorized Western-style struck coinage in the 1850s partly as a diplomatic calculation: flat, machine-made coins were legible to European trading partners who found the traditional bullet-money (pod duang) baffling. The Royal Siamese Mint, established with equipment sourced from Birmingham, began producing this series around 1860 as Siam negotiated trade treaties with Britain and France simultaneously.

The Y#10.1 designation distinguishes the earlier die variety from later emissions. Surviving examples in problem-free condition are genuinely scarce — most circulated heavily in a domestic economy that had used hand-formed coinage for centuries and treated the new flat pieces no differently.