1 Piastre - Victoria

Cyprus came under British administration in 1878 following the Cyprus Convention, by which the Ottoman Empire ceded control to Britain in exchange for defensive guarantees against Russia. The island was not formally annexed — it remained nominally Ottoman territory paying tribute to Constantinople — which created an administratively awkward arrangement that persisted until Britain annexed Cyprus outright at the outbreak of WWI in 1914. The piastre coinage issued during Victoria's reign reflected that ambiguity: British in execution, hybrid in political reality.

KM#3 is known with both a heaton mint privy mark and without, the Birmingham Mint having struck the majority of the series.