1/4 Mohar - Tribhuvana Bir Bikram

Tribhuvana Bir Bikram ascended the throne of Nepal in 1911 at age five, and the coins struck in his name during these early regnal years were issued under the effective control of the Rana prime ministerial regime — the monarchy functionally ceremonial. The Ranas had dominated Nepal's government since Jang Bahadur Rana's seizure of power in 1846, reducing successive kings to figureheads while maintaining rigid isolationist policies that kept Nepal's coinage traditions largely unchanged for decades.

Tribhuvana would eventually upend all of that — his 1950 flight to the Indian embassy in Kathmandu triggered the revolution that ended Rana rule — but nothing in this early silver issue anticipates what was coming.