500 Dinar Gold - Mozaffar ad-Din Qajar

Mozaffar ad-Din Shah's reign was financially catastrophic for Iran. To fund his three European tours — extravagant trips that scandalized reformist opinion — he took out ruinous loans from Russia in 1900 and 1901, surrendering Iranian customs revenues as collateral. Small gold emissions like this 500 Dinar piece were struck against a backdrop of a treasury that was effectively mortgaged to a foreign power. The concessions attached to those loans directly fueled the Constitutional Revolution of 1906, which Mozaffar ad-Din Shah, by then terminally ill, was compelled to sign into law five days before his death.