1/4 Riyal / 25 Halālah - Fayṣal FAO

Issued as part of the global FAO coin program, which ran through the 1970s and recruited dozens of minting authorities to produce special circulation pieces promoting agricultural development and food security. Saudi Arabia's participation reflected its engagement with the UN's campaign following the 1972 Soviet grain crisis, which had sent food prices spiraling worldwide and lent the FAO program unusual urgency that year.

Struck at a time when Saudi oil revenues were transforming the kingdom's monetary infrastructure at speed, this issue sits in an odd position — a foreign-policy gesture minted domestically while the country was still building the institutions that would eventually replace SAMA itself.