10 Santeem - Haile Selassie I Trial Strike

Trial strikes from Ethiopia's 1944 coinage program were produced as the country rebuilt its monetary infrastructure following liberation from Italian occupation in 1941. Haile Selassie had spent the occupation years in exile in Bath, England, and the postwar recoinage was a deliberate assertion of restored sovereignty — conducted with technical assistance from foreign mints rather than domestic facilities, which Ethiopia did not yet possess.

Brass trial pieces from this series are rarely documented in institutional collections, making provenance difficult to establish with confidence.