Being stationed overseas and dealing with this coinage every day I figured it would be nice to throw a little knowledge on both a country that not a lot of people have heard of, and more importantly their coinage. To start this off, Bahrain is a small island country (295sq Miles) that is 16 miles off the coast of Saudi Arabia. It is a Unitary Presidential Constitutional Monarchy with a King. Bahrain is home to the ancient Dilmun Civilization (Circa 4th millennium BC – 540 BC) renowned for their Pearls. In the late 1800’s Bahrain became a protectorate of the United Kingdom and then in 1971 Bahrain declared independence from the UK to become an emirate. Then in 2002 was formally recognized as a Kingdom. For this we are going to focus on the modern coinage of the country. The modern design of Bahrain was first enacted in 1992 and comes in 5 denominations. The denominations are: 5 Fils, 10 Fils, 25 Fils, 50 Fils, and 100 Fils. The 5 and 10 Fils are brass, the 25 and 50 Fils are Cupro-nickel, and the 100 Fils coin is a Cupro-nickel core surrounded by a brass ring. Following along I will go into more detail of designs and sizes. 5 Fils/19mm/2.50g/Brass/OBV: Palm Tree/REV: Value 10 Fils/21mm/3.35g/Brass/OBV: Palm Tree/REV: Value 25 Fils/20mm/2.35g/Cupro-nickel/OBV: Dilmun Civilization seal/ REV: Value 50 Fils/22mm/3.5g/Cupro-nickel/OBV: Boat (Dhow)/ REV: Value 100Fils/24mm/6.0g/Cupro-nickel with Brass ring/OBV: Coat of Arms/REV: Value *I do not own these images* Bahrain Fils are out of 1000, instead of the more common 100 and form together to make one Bahraini Dinar. The locked exchange rate is 1 BHD: $2.65 Thank you and I hope you learned a little something, Charles
