5 Qirush / Piastres

By 1954, the Banque de Syrie et du Liban was already operating on borrowed time — Syria and Lebanon had formally separated their currencies in 1948, and Syria would establish its own central bank just two years after this coin was struck. These aluminium piastres were issued into an economy where the franc-linked monetary union that had governed the Levant since the French Mandate was visibly unwinding. The shift to aluminium itself reflected postwar metal economics rather than any deliberate policy choice.