1 Fueang - Rama IV Hammering trial strike

Thailand's transition from traditional bullet coinage to flat-struck machine coin began under Rama IV, who engaged the Royal Mint in London and later established domestic striking capacity. Trial pieces from this period document that learning process — hammered trials exist because the Siamese craftsmen were still working through the mechanical gap between hand-hammering techniques they knew and the screw-press equipment they were acquiring. This gold fueang trial is not a circulated denomination but a production test, never intended for commerce.

The Friedberg reference confirms gold fueang pieces of this type are genuinely rare survivors of an experimental phase that lasted only a few years before machine striking was fully adopted.