Thibaw Min was the last king of Burma, and 1879 fell in the early years of his reign — a period of court consolidation following a succession purge in which dozens of rival princes were executed. His coinage was struck at the royal mint in Mandalay under a kingdom already under severe pressure from British commercial encroachment in the south. The brass alloy of this quarter pe places it as a lower-denomination workhorse, circulating among a population whose sovereign would be deposed and exiled to Ratnagiri, India, just six years after this piece was struck.
Thibaw Min was the last king of Burma, and 1879 fell in the early years of his reign — a period of court consolidation following a succession purge in which dozens of rival princes were executed. His coinage was struck at the royal mint in Mandalay under a kingdom already under severe pressure from British commercial encroachment in the south. The brass alloy of this quarter pe places it as a lower-denomination workhorse, circulating among a population whose sovereign would be deposed and exiled to Ratnagiri, India, just six years after this piece was struck.