10 Dirhams

Libya's 1979 coinage was issued under the authority of the Jamahiriya — the "state of the masses" — the political system Muammar Gaddafi declared in 1977 following his dismantling of the Libyan Arab Republic. The Central Bank itself operated under considerable ideological pressure during this period, as Gaddafi's Green Book explicitly rejected conventional economic structures. Copper-nickel clad steel rather than solid copper-nickel reflects the cost-cutting realities of a mint program subordinated to a government far more interested in oil revenues than numismatic infrastructure.