AFGHANISTAN. Kingdom. Mohammad Zahir Shah, 1933–1973. Aluminum 25 Pul. "SH1331" ("1952"). Struck on KM-949 Planchets in 1970. Doubled Obverse. UNC. KM-945. Schön-82b.

This aluminum 25 Pul is among the most numismatically complex pieces in the coinage of the Kingdom of Afghanistan — a coin that combines three distinct and independently noteworthy characteristics: a frozen date, a planchet from an entirely different denomination, and a doubled obverse.

The frozen date story begins in SH1331 (1952), when the standard aluminum 25 Pul was first produced using dies bearing that year. The planchet story intersects with a separate episode in Afghan monetary history: KM-949 is the aluminum 2 Afghani piece dated SH1337 (1958), struck to a standard weight of 2.6 grams at approximately 24.8mm diameter. Production of that denomination was cut short due to counterfeiting concerns — the 2 Afghani coin carried a face value significantly higher than the 25 Pul, making it an attractive target for counterfeiters, and authorities halted the production run to address the problem. The surplus aluminum planchets prepared for that run were retained rather than destroyed. When additional 25 Pul coins were needed in 1970, those leftover KM-949 planchets were used instead of freshly prepared ones, and the recycled SH1331 dies were employed to strike them — producing coins that appear dated 1952 but were actually struck in 1970, on planchets never intended for this denomination.

The third layer of interest is the doubled obverse. Across the obverse face, the inscriptions display clear separation and layering of design elements consistent with a doubled die — a phenomenon that occurs during the hubbing process when the working die receives more than one impression from the hub at slightly different positions, embedding the doubling permanently into the die itself. Every coin subsequently struck from that die carries the doubling as a mint-made characteristic. The doubling is visible across multiple areas of the obverse design including the central cartouche text and surrounding inscriptions, and the separation between the primary and secondary impressions is distinct rather than the shelf-like flatness associated with the less significant machine doubling.

Catalogued as KM-945 with Schön-82b, the standard type specification calls for 2.5 grams at 24mm diameter in aluminium. The KM-949 planchets are slightly heavier at 2.6 grams and marginally larger at approximately 24.8mm, and examples struck on these planchets may display subtle but measurable physical differences from standard KM-945 coins. This example is presented in Uncirculated condition, retaining original mint surfaces. For the specialist in Afghan coinage, the collector of doubled die varieties, or the student of production oddities in world coinage, this coin represents a rare convergence of three separate numismatic phenomena in a single piece.