1 Drachma Pattern

Greece's first coinage as an independent kingdom was issued under Otto I, the Bavarian prince installed as king following the 1832 London Convention. The 1833 patterns — including this copper drachma — were struck in Munich before the Aegina mint had even opened, as the new government scrambled to establish a monetary identity for a country that had been using a patchwork of Ottoman, Venetian, and insurgent coinage throughout the war of independence. Pattern production preceded the official circulating series by a full year.