1/4 Pya

Burma's lead coinage of this period occupies an odd corner of numismatic history. Issued under the rule of Mindon Min, these fractional pieces circulated in the Konbaung court economy during a period of intense pressure from British India encroaching from the south and west — Rangoon and the coastal provinces had already been lost by 1852. Lead was not a prestige metal; its use here reflects pragmatic local minting rather than any formal monetary architecture aligned with colonial standards.

KM#23 is genuinely scarce in any condition. Lead corrodes aggressively, and few examples have survived without significant surface deterioration.