10 Toman - Nāṣer al-Dīn Qājār

Nasir al-Din Shah ruled Iran for nearly half a century, but his treasury was chronically strained — partly by the enormous cost of his three European tours, which he financed in part by selling concessions to foreign interests, most notoriously the 1872 Reuter Concession and the 1890 Tobacco Regie. The 10 Toman occupied the top of the Qajar gold denomination structure and was never a coin of daily commerce; pieces entering circulation at all was the exception.

The shah was assassinated in 1896, two years after the close of this issue's production window, by a follower of Jamal al-Din al-Afghani — leaving the Qajar monetary system, already undermined by foreign debt and concession revenues, to his far weaker successors.