50 Dīnār - Mohammad Rezā Pahlavī

Iran's copper coinage of the early 1940s was minted under foreign occupation — British and Soviet forces had jointly invaded in August 1941, deposed Reza Shah, and installed his twenty-one-year-old son Mohammad Reza on the throne largely as a compliant wartime figurehead. The copper issues that followed reflected a monetary system under severe strain, with Allied requisitioning disrupting metal supplies and hoarding pulling silver coins out of circulation entirely.

The "a" suffix in KM#1142a denotes the copper composition variant, issued when nickel was no longer reliably available for coinage purposes.