1⁄80 Rial

The Yemen Arab Republic came into existence through a military coup in September 1962 that overthrew Imam Muhammad al-Badr, triggering an eight-year civil war immediately backed by Egyptian troops on the republican side and Saudi Arabia supporting the royalists. This coin was struck in 1963 — while that war was already underway — making it among the earliest issues of a government that was, at the time, controlling little more than Sanaa and its immediate surroundings. Egyptian influence over the fledgling republic extended to its coinage infrastructure.