Tahmasp I ruled the Safavid Empire for over five decades — the longest reign of any Safavid shah — yet his relationship with the minting apparatus was anything but stable. Following the Ottoman-Safavid wars and the catastrophic sack of Tabriz, Tahmasp relocated his capital to Qazvin in 1555, and provincial mints like Mashhad operated with considerable autonomy during the later years of his reign. Mashhad's status as the shrine city of Imam Reza gave its mint output a particular religious weight among Shia populations that purely administrative mints could not replicate.
The Album N2593 designation flags this as an unpublished or provisional type, meaning die documentation remains incomplete.
Tahmasp I ruled the Safavid Empire for over five decades — the longest reign of any Safavid shah — yet his relationship with the minting apparatus was anything but stable. Following the Ottoman-Safavid wars and the catastrophic sack of Tabriz, Tahmasp relocated his capital to Qazvin in 1555, and provincial mints like Mashhad operated with considerable autonomy during the later years of his reign. Mashhad's status as the shrine city of Imam Reza gave its mint output a particular religious weight among Shia populations that purely administrative mints could not replicate.
The Album N2593 designation flags this as an unpublished or provisional type, meaning die documentation remains incomplete.