Dirham - al-Ẓāhir Baybars I

Baybars I came to power by personally killing the Mongol general Kitbuqa at the Battle of Ain Jalut in 1260 — the first major Mongol battlefield defeat — and spent the following decade systematically dismantling the Crusader coastal fortifications. His dirhams from this period were struck across multiple Syrian and Egyptian mints, and Album 883 encompasses considerable variation in mint name and regnal year placement that collectors frequently underestimate.

Baybars also installed a puppet Abbasid caliph in Cairo after the Mongols had extinguished the Baghdad caliphate in 1258, using the arrangement to legitimize his coinage and administrative authority simultaneously.