1 Piastre

France's Syrian mandate coinage was administered directly by the Banque de Syrie et du Grand-Liban, a privately chartered French institution, rather than through any local monetary authority. The 1931 issue arrived amid sharp economic disruption following Syria's integration into the franc zone, which had effectively displaced Ottoman-era coinage still circulating in rural markets well into the 1920s.

Production at the Paris mint was interrupted across this series by the broader retrenchment of French colonial monetary policy during the early Depression years, making certain date-and-mint combinations genuinely scarce in circulated grades rather than merely in mint state.