1/2 Ghirsh / Piastre WW2 War Coinage, Unholed Pattern

Syria in 1941 was under Vichy French administration — the Mandate authority that had controlled coinage production since the 1920s. When Allied forces invaded in June of that year and handed control to the Free French, the entire monetary apparatus was in transition. Pattern pieces from this moment are poorly documented precisely because the issuing authority itself was in dispute; it is not always clear which administration commissioned a given trial strike.

The unholed format distinguishes this from the circulating wartime issue, which carried a central hole — a cost-reduction measure standard across Levant coinage of the period.