This coin was issued in 1920 during reign of the 13th Dalai Lama. At this time China was divided by civil war and then distracted by the anti-Japanese war, but never renounced its claim to sovereignty over Tibet and made occasional attempts to assert it but Tibet was relatively autonomous at this time. This is a very common low denomination Tibetan copper coin.

About Tibet: Tibet is situated between the two ancient civilizations of China and India, but the tangled mountain ranges, the Tibetan Plateau, and the towering Himalayas serve to distance it from both. The Tibetan language is a member of the Tibeto-Burman branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. Tibetan history is characterized by an isolation from the outside world and by a special dedication to the Buddhist religion, both in the eyes of its own people as well as for the Mongol and Manchu peoples. Tibet is nicknamed "the roof of the world" or "the land of snows" (the later preferred by Tibetans themselves).