1 Qirsh - Abdulmecid I

Abdülmecid I came to the throne at seventeen following his father Mahmud II's death in 1839 — the same year this type was introduced — and almost immediately issued the Hatt-ı Şerif of Gülhane, the foundational decree of the Tanzimat reform period. Egypt at this point was effectively autonomous under the Kavalalı dynasty, and the Cairo mint's output, while technically Ottoman imperial coinage, circulated within an administrative structure that had openly defied Istanbul just years earlier during the Turko-Egyptian wars of the 1830s. The tension between nominal suzerainty and Egyptian de facto independence is embedded in the very existence of this issue.

Cairo mint production across this reign is notably inconsistent in die alignment and silver fineness, with assay variations documented across regnal years.