25 Pul - Muhammed Zahir Shah

Afghanistan's shift to aluminium coinage in the early 1950s was driven by chronic metal shortages and the country's limited industrial infrastructure — the lightweight alloy allowed Da Afghanistan Bank to stretch its minting budget considerably further than bronze or cupro-nickel would have permitted. These coins were struck at the Kabul mint, which had only been modernized with foreign technical assistance a decade prior.

Zahir Shah's reign was then in its reformist phase, with Prime Minister Shah Mahmud Khan cautiously opening Afghanistan to foreign investment and a free press — a period sometimes called the "Liberal Parliament" era, though it ended abruptly in 1953 with Daoud Khan's coup against his own uncle.