1 Tola - Tribhuvan Bir Bikram

The tola was a traditional South Asian unit of mass — roughly the weight of a silver rupee — and Nepal's adoption of it for gold coinage reflects the subcontinent's long practice of anchoring precious metal currency to familiar mercantile weights rather than imposed colonial standards. Tribhuvan's reign was anything but stable: he spent much of it under effective house arrest by the Rana oligarchy, which controlled the state apparatus while the monarchy was reduced to a ceremonial role. The coins issued in his name were, in practical terms, instruments of Rana economic policy.