1/2 Piastre - Edward VII

Cyprus passed to British administration in 1878 under a convention with the Ottoman Empire, and coinage for the island presented an immediate awkward problem: the existing Ottoman monetary system had to be reconciled with British denominations. The piastre solution was a compromise that satisfied neither local merchants nor the Colonial Office particularly well, but it persisted. By 1908, Edward VII had only three years left to reign, and production of this denomination was already winding down — the series would not survive long into George V's reign before Cyprus's coinage was reformed.