PREVIEW: COINS & HISTORICAL MEDALS: 14 & 15 NOVEMBER

Conflict in the Middle East has been a constant theme of the past century, with the post-War settlement under British and French mandates after the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 setting the scene for what was to come in the following decades.

One of the key moves came at the 1921 Cairo Conference, when Britain decided that future peace was more likely if the mandate was managed through a new monarch, Faisal, who had become King of the Arab Kingdom of Syria a year earlier.

A champion of pan-Arab nationalism, Faisal spent much of the next decade navigating the tricky waters of religious and tribal factionalism in a bid to stabilise the nation and cement his family’s rule. The ensuing marginalisation of the Kurds remains a critical consideration in the country’s politics today.

Against this backdrop, as Iraq prepared for the end of the British mandate, it also set about replacing the existing currency, the Indian Rupee, with the Iraqi Dinar, which entered circulation on 1 April 1932, seven months before an independent Iraq joined the Arab League of Nations.

In preparation for the change in currency, the Royal Mint struck proof sets of the new coinage, including a 1931/AH 1349 double proof set comprising two examples each of the 50 Fils, 20 Fils, 10 Fils, 4 Fils, 2 Fils, and 1 Fil.

Surviving complete examples are extremely rare, but one such, with an extremely significant provenance, is included in the catalogue here.

It has been consigned by a direct descendant of Mr Abraham Elkabir (1885-1973), a leading Iraqi official, who served as Accountant-General and Director-General of Finance (1927-1948), as well as representing Iraq at the Bretton Woods Conference (1944) and many other financial conferences in Istanbul, Geneva, Jordan and the U.S.A.

In extremely fine or better condition and presented in its case of issue, with the lid stamped Iraq Currency Board, the estimate is £30,000-£40,000.