Two piasters, 1942... They deceived you when they said

The beginning dates back to July 1937 when King Farouk reached the age of majority, by which he could legitimately rule Egypt without a regency council. At that time, he delivered a speech at the opening of Parliament in which he indicated the government's intention to mint coins in Egypt instead of minting them abroad.

With the outbreak of World War II, security conditions prevented the government from making progress in minting currency. Meanwhile, the public resorted to hoarding the precious metal, silver. This coincided with the declaration of martial law in Egypt. In June 1940, Prime Minister Ali Maher Pasha issued Military Order No. 47 concerning the hoarding of silver or selling it at a price higher than its value. However, there was a need for two-piaster coins for circulation among the public, especially as the situation worsened. The small change crisis 1941. .

The conflict between British and Italian forces intensified in the Western Desert of Egypt, with the Italians advancing approximately 110 km from the border to the town of Maktila, located about 16 km east of Sidi Barrani. They managed to occupy it. اFor Salloum and Sidi Barrani, the process of shipping coins from Britain to Egypt became increasingly difficult, so Egypt resorted to seriously considering minting silver coins on Egyptian soil.

In 1941, the Egyptian government held some consultations to discuss the most suitable place to mint those coins, and the mint in the Citadel was suggested, but it was not agreed upon because the tools and machines that it contained were old and would not be suitable for installing the modern minting molds that were to be supplied from Britain. So, this task was entrusted to the Weights and Measures Department in Gamaliya.

The head of the Mint, Mahmoud Sirry, began work and found machines suitable for minting coins, but they were manually operated. The dies were installed and tested, and the minting process was successful after weight and fineness tests were conducted to ensure compliance with specifications. However, manual work is naturally slow, so Mahmoud Sirry began searching for government workshops and industrial school workshops to develop the minting process. The first coins minted by Egyptian hands during the monarchy were finally produced in November 1941.

The Egyptian government began inventorying all available silver for minting. Old coins were procured to mint coins worth 5,000 Egyptian pounds (250,000 pieces), planned as an initial batch for distribution in the markets before Eid al-Adha. The Assay Office actively produced two-piaster silver coins, reaching a daily output of 100 Egyptian pounds (10,000 pieces), with 200 pieces minted by hand in Birmingham.

  In March 1942, the shipyard workshop was tasked with manufacturing the machinery necessary for minting silver coins of five, ten, and twenty piaster denominations. By the end of March, the Ministry of Finance had secured a deal to import automatic presses from England and agreed to purchase them for use in minting coins in Cairo.

 

He did not fully disclose the details of this project, and it is still unknown exactly how many pieces were minted upon its completion, but the quantities that were announced were as follows:

In February 1942, the minting of 250,000 coins was announced to be complete.

In April 1942, the completion of a total of 850,000 pieces was announced.

In July 1942, the Mint announced that the total number of two-piaster coins minted up to the end of the month was 2 million.

It is worth mentioning that in August 1942, Mahmoud Sirry met with the ministers of the Egyptian government and presented them with a gift of a small box containing ten silver coins of the same value, on the occasion of the minting of silver coins in Egypt.

 

Sources:

Egyptian newspapers from September 1941 to August 1942

Encyclopedia and Catalog of Egyptian Currencies (Coins) by Engineer Magdy Hanafy

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