5 piastres - Mahmud II imitation

Monaco struck this piece to circulate in the Levantine trade networks where Ottoman piastres were the accepted medium of exchange. The principality had no formal monetary agreement with the Porte, making this an opportunistic commercial imitation rather than a treaty coinage — produced to profit from the weight-based trust Mediterranean merchants placed in Ottoman silver.

The silver-clad copper construction was the operative deception. A contemporary Ottoman piastre carried genuine silver throughout; this did not.