Solot / 1⁄4 Fueang - Rama IV

Rama IV — Mongkut — authorized tin coinage as a practical concession to the demands of small-denomination trade at a moment when Siam was under intense commercial pressure from British and French colonial expansion on its borders. The 1855 Bowring Treaty with Britain had opened Siamese markets and accelerated the need for a rationalized currency system capable of handling petty transactions that bullet coins never efficiently served.

Tin was the obvious local solution — Siam had abundant peninsular tin resources — but the alloy's softness means surviving examples with full detail are genuinely scarce.