The Ionian Islands operated under British protection from 1815, a political arrangement that produced one of the more unusual coinages in Greek numismatic history — a British-administered Greek-speaking state issuing silver denominated in lepta. The protectorate's currency was pegged to the Spanish dollar at a fixed rate established by the 1819 currency ordinance, giving these small silvers a defined role in regional Mediterranean trade rather than purely local exchange.
The series ran across multiple die pairs catalogued as Pridmore 9 through 17, with documented variation in the positioning of date numerals across the emission years.
The Ionian Islands operated under British protection from 1815, a political arrangement that produced one of the more unusual coinages in Greek numismatic history — a British-administered Greek-speaking state issuing silver denominated in lepta. The protectorate's currency was pegged to the Spanish dollar at a fixed rate established by the 1819 currency ordinance, giving these small silvers a defined role in regional Mediterranean trade rather than purely local exchange.
The series ran across multiple die pairs catalogued as Pridmore 9 through 17, with documented variation in the positioning of date numerals across the emission years.