50 Lepta Regime of the Colonels

The 1973 Greek junta coinage was issued during the final, unstable year of the military dictatorship that had seized power in April 1967. By 1973, the regime of Georgios Papadopoulos was fracturing internally — a student uprising at the Athens Polytechnic in November of that year was crushed by tanks, and a hardline counter-coup by Brigadier Ioannidis followed within days. These coins circulated through one of the most politically volatile moments in postwar Greek history, and the junta itself would collapse entirely within eight months.