50 Fils

Jordan's first national coinage — issued in 1949 under Abdullah I, just two years after Transjordan became the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan — was struck at the Royal Mint in London while the country was still absorbing the political consequences of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. The timing meant these coins entered circulation in a kingdom whose territorial situation had just changed dramatically, with Jordan administering the West Bank following the armistice agreements.

The series replaced the Palestinian pound coinage that had circulated under the British Mandate, a monetary transition that carried considerable political weight for a newly sovereign state.