5 Lepta Pattern

Greece's first coinage as an independent kingdom was entrusted to the Bavarian mint at Munich — a consequence of Otto of Wittelsbach's installation as king in 1832. These 1833 patterns were produced as the new government wrestled with establishing a monetary system from scratch, having inherited an economy devastated by over a decade of war against Ottoman rule. The Phoenix coinage of Kapodistrias had already come and gone; this series was Greece's second attempt at sovereign currency in fewer than ten years.

As a pattern, this piece never entered circulation. The Karamitsos reference places it among a small group of trial strikings evaluated before the confirmed series was approved.