10 Rials - Mohammad Rezā Pahlavī

This issue spans the years immediately preceding the Revolution, when the Shah's government was simultaneously flush with petrodollar revenue and under mounting political pressure. The oil crisis of 1973 paradoxically enriched Iran while destabilizing the social compact the Pahlavi regime depended on — rising expectations, rapid industrialization, and visible inequality all accelerated through exactly the years these coins circulated.

Bank Markazi had been established only in 1960, replacing the Bank Melli as the central issuing authority. By the mid-1970s it was managing one of the fastest-growing economies in the developing world, and these low-denomination coins were among the last the institution would produce under imperial authority before the 1979 changeover erased the entire Pahlavi coinage series from circulation.