Owner Comments:
And now we come to one of the stars of all Ottoman coinage, not just the Nickel Para series. The 1327/7 20 Para was made in two types, one with Reshat by the Tughra and one with el-Ghazi by the Tughra with a combined mintage of 800 coins split between the two types. This coin is the Reshat type, with an estimated mintage of 500 coins.
The reason for the extreme rarity of this coin is twofold. The first is the miniscule mintage. That alone would make an extremely rare coin. But Ottoman Nickel coins faced a further source of attrition after 1916. That was the year that the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire started and many Ottoman coins were defaced by the rebel Arab states of Hejaz and Nejd for use in their realms. That is the fate that most of the 800 1327/7 20 Paras met.
I've only seen two examples of this coin. One was an raw XF 45 that I missed out on a few years back. The second is the coin in this collection, which is a nice AU 50. This is also one of only four 1327/7 20 Para coins of either type that has ever been graded by NGC. Hopefully, I'll have an el-Ghazi type to add someday, but I'm not holding my breath. The only example of that coin I've ever seen had a huge hole drilled through it, so I passed.
Year of Issue-1915 Mintage-800 for both types, est. 500 for this type.