1 Obol

The United States of the Ionian Islands was a British protectorate established by the Treaty of Paris in 1815, and its coinage was issued under British supervision while nominally belonging to an autonomous Greek-speaking republic — an awkward fiction that satisfied neither the islanders nor the European powers watching the experiment. The obol denomination itself was a deliberate classicizing choice, reaching back to ancient Greek monetary vocabulary to lend the new state a veneer of Hellenic legitimacy.

British India's Soho Mint connections influenced production of these early issues, though the series is relatively scarce in all grades given the islands' small population and the denomination's workhorse role in daily commerce.