20 Paisa - Tribhuvana Bir Bikram

Nepal's silver coinage under Tribhuvan was minted at Kathmandu, one of the few royal mints in Asia still operating under direct palace authority into the twentieth century. The .800 fineness used here reflects a deliberate reduction from earlier Nepali issues, part of a broader rationalisation of the kingdom's monetary alloys that accelerated through the 1930s as silver prices fluctuated on world markets following the collapse of the international silver standard.

Tribhuvan himself was kept under effective house arrest by the Rana prime ministerial dynasty for much of this coin's production span, a political reality that makes the royal name on the coinage something of a fiction — the Ranas governed, the king merely lent his name.