1/2 Drachma - Otto

Otto of Wittelsbach arrived in Greece in 1833 as a seventeen-year-old Bavarian prince installed by the protecting powers — Britain, France, and Russia — to rule a country that had barely concluded its war of independence. His early coinage, including this fractional silver, was designed and in part physically produced in Munich before Greek minting infrastructure existed. The phoenix monetary system it belonged to was replaced by the drachma system in 1833, with Otto's issues forming the first standardized coinage of the modern Greek state.

The .900 fine silver specification followed Bavarian rather than any indigenous Greek standard — a small but telling detail about who was really setting policy in Athens during the regency years.