1/4 Pe - Thibaw Min

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.