1 Birr - Menelik II

Ethiopia's first domestically relevant large silver coin, the Birr was struck at the Paris Mint during a period when Menelik II was consolidating imperial authority and modernizing state infrastructure. The timing is pointed: production overlapped almost exactly with the lead-up to Adwa, the 1896 battle in which Ethiopian forces decisively defeated the Italian army — one of the very few instances of an African nation repelling a European colonial military in open combat. A coin asserting Ethiopian monetary identity issued on the eve of that victory carries weight beyond its silver content.

The Paris Mint's involvement was practical necessity; Ethiopia had no mint of its own. Struck in three calendar years of the Gregorian calendar, the coins bear Ethiopian calendar dates, a detail that continues to trip up catalogers working from European references.