10 Girush / Piastres Essai

Lebanon's first coinage under the French Mandate was produced at the Paris Mint, with essai pieces struck in 1924 and again for subsequent denominations through the late 1920s. This 1929 essai predates any regular circulation issue of the type, produced as a pattern submission for approval rather than for commerce. France's mandate administration was reorganizing Lebanese monetary arrangements following the separation from the Syrian pound, and these trial pieces document the negotiation between Paris bureaucrats and Beirut officials over what a distinctly Lebanese coinage should look like.