Greece 1 drachma 1910 - George I

The coin's story

This 1 drachma coin in 835 thousandths silver belongs to the short series struck in 1910 and 1911, the last in the name of George I, King of the Hellenes. George I, a Danish prince and younger son of the future King Christian IX, was elected at the age of 17 by the Greek National Assembly and reigned from 1863 until his assassination in Thessaloniki on 18 March 1913. The portrait of the elderly King and the Thetis on the reverse are the work of Georgios Jakobides (Iakovidis), a Greek painter and medallist, a major figure of the Munich School and the first curator of the National Gallery in Athens. The reverse shows the Nereid Thetis, mother of Achilles, carrying her son's shield. The coin was struck at the Paris Mint, the 1910 date has 4,570,159 pieces. It was struck to the standards of the Latin Monetary Union, the drachma then being worth one franc.