The 1831 lepton belongs to the first coinage of the modern Greek state, authorized under Ioannis Kapodistrias, who served as the first governor of independent Greece. Kapodistrias had pushed hard to establish a national mint at Aegina — the provisional capital — as a concrete assertion of sovereignty over a territory still being contested militarily. He was assassinated in October 1831, the same year this coin was struck, making the entire Aegina mint series a brief and politically violent episode in Greek monetary history.
The 1831 lepton belongs to the first coinage of the modern Greek state, authorized under Ioannis Kapodistrias, who served as the first governor of independent Greece. Kapodistrias had pushed hard to establish a national mint at Aegina — the provisional capital — as a concrete assertion of sovereignty over a territory still being contested militarily. He was assassinated in October 1831, the same year this coin was struck, making the entire Aegina mint series a brief and politically violent episode in Greek monetary history.