10 Toman - Nāṣer al-Dīn Qājār

Nāṣer al-Dīn Shāh's long reign — fifty years, the longest of any Qājār monarch — ended violently in 1896 when he was shot by Mīrzā Reżā Kermānī at the shrine of Shah Abdol-Azim, just days before the celebrations of his golden jubilee. This 1894 issue was struck within two years of that assassination, during a period when the Tehran Mint was increasingly reliant on European technical assistance and when Nāṣer al-Dīn had already mortgaged significant Iranian revenues to Russian and British creditors through a series of deeply unpopular concessions.

The 10 Toman denomination was never a circulation piece — it functioned as a presentation and diplomatic gift coin from the outset.