Catalog
2 Leva - Ferdinand I
| Issuer | Bulgaria |
|---|---|
| Year | 1912-1916 |
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| Diameter | 27 mm |
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| Obverse description | Bare-headed, bearded effigy of Tsar Ferdinand I facing left, with engraver's signature R. MARSCHALL incuse at the truncation. The Cyrillic legend encircles the portrait close to the beaded border, reading from lower left to upper right. The portrait is rendered in high relief with fine naturalistic detail to the hair and beard, in the academic style characteristic of late 19th- and early 20th-century European coinage. |
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| Obverse lettering | ФЕРДИНАНДЪ I ЦАРЬ НА БЪЛГАРИТѢ (Translation: Ferdinand I the Tzar of the Bulgarians) |
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| Additional information |
Bulgaria entered the First Balkan War in October 1912, and the timing of this issue is inseparable from that mobilization. The treasury needed hard silver currency in circulation as the country went to war against the Ottoman Empire alongside Serbia, Greece, and Montenegro — a coalition that dismembered Ottoman Europe in under two months. A second war followed almost immediately in 1913, this time against former allies, and the dates on surviving examples track almost precisely with the kingdom's most violent and expensive years.
Production ran through 1916, deep into Bulgaria's involvement in World War I on the Central Powers side. By then, silver was disappearing from circulation across all belligerent nations.