10 Qirsh - Abdulmecid I

Abdülmecid I had been sultan for less than a year when this coin was struck, having ascended the Ottoman throne at seventeen following Mahmud II's death in July 1839 — the same summer Egypt's forces under Ibrahim Pasha had just crushed the Ottoman army at Nizip. The Egyptian issue bearing his tughra was politically loaded: Mehmed Ali's Egypt was technically a vassal striking coin in the suzerain's name while simultaneously routing his armies.

The 1839 coinage also coincided with the promulgation of the Hatt-ı Şerif of Gülhane, the opening salvo of the Tanzimat reform edicts.