William IIII Rupee

[Md. Shariful Islam]

If it was available for export I would take it.

Me too. But if it was for free .

Islam

[malj1]

Here is an excerpt from Pridmore which may be of interest.

William IV: mint marks
With the exception of a MULE RUPEE bearing the date 1840, all the silver coins struck for general circulation during the period 1835 to 1840/41 bear the fixed year date 1835. At the Calcutta Mint the effigy of William IV was retained until the 10th November 1840. At Bombay the coinage lasted until the 31st March 1841. These two mints were responsible for silver coinage bearing the effigy of William IV. The Madras Mint only struck copper coins.
Attribution of the silver issues to the mint of striking is based upon the occurrence or non-occurrence of initials on the truncation of the King's neck.
Coins of all the silver denominations occur with the initials of the following Masters of the Calcutta Mint.
R.S. =Robert Saunders, 7th April 1826 - 4th January 1836
F. =Lt.-Col. William Nairn Forbes R.E., 5th January 1836 - 23rd January 1855
and the classification of the coins bearing these initials to the Calcutta Mint is certain. It therefore only leaves the coins with a plain truncation to be attributed.
The 'F' and 'plain' truncation rupees occur roughly on a 2 to 1 ratio (the RS marked specimens are scarce and can be disregarded). When checked against the mint returns for the period, viz., Calcutta 109,088,070 and Bombay 53,712,502 rupees value, the inference is that the 'plain' truncation coins are the product of the Bombay Mint. Additional support is given by the THIN GUARDING RIM on the coins which agrees with the description given in the report mentioned on page 9. They are catalogued accordingly.

[Harry]

@maji1 - thanks for this, its very interesting.  I don't know why but for some reason I thought that the initials were that of the engravers. Based on the information you presented they can be used as mintmarks. I.e. Calcutta produced RS and F and Bombay produced the plain ones.   My 1840 Rupee that I posted on this thread has RS incused on the truncation, I have another one with F raised.

Again based on what you posted the total mintage of RS, F raised and F incuse 1840 Rupee coins is  109 million.  Are there any figures showing how many RS 1840 Rupees were minted?

What would the order of rarity be between RS, F raised, F incuse and plain (am I missing any other)?

[Harry]

The coin has certainly passed the ping test.. But the irregularities shown by Islamda and Harry is worth noting.. As a safe side I think I'll give back the coin to the seller..

Dr. Abhishek, if you haven't done so could you please get the weight and the diameter of this coin before you return it. It would be interesting to see what they are.  Thanks.

[Md. Shariful Islam]

I also suggest to take an accurate measurement of the thickness. That is more important than diameter I guess.

[andyg]

this coin is not cast - it will certainly ping - it is struck but, with poor dies resulting in poor quality of strike, the cleaning is an attempt to hide this.  Modern fakes are rarely cast.

Dr. Abhishek, sadly my advice would be to take the 1840 Victoria Rupee back also (if you are able to) - looking at the pictures posted it too has similar problems.  On the 1840 of most concern is the alignment of the date numerals - but again the detail in general does not look sharp enough for such a well preserved specimen, the serifs on the legends look odd too in places, but that may be normal for these.

@Harry - your rupee looks absolutely stunning!
btw, that is not my rupee - it's one I found for sale on the net in the UK (£60 if anyone wants it)

[anand]

Wow!

The cleaning of the coin has really taken away the focus from all the differences that should have been focused on. As mentioned the weight and other dimensions should be key here.

Anand

[@josephjk]

The 1835 coin has a few variations per the Baldwin website
http://www.baldwin.co.uk/coins-of-india/
Look under
Uniform Coinage\William IV 1835\Rupee 1835 currency

[malj1]

@maji1 - thanks for this, its very interesting.  I don't know why but for some reason I thought that the initials were that of the engravers. Based on the information you presented they can be used as mintmarks. I.e. Calcutta produced RS and F and Bombay produced the plain ones.   My 1840 Rupee that I posted on this thread has RS incused on the truncation, I have another one with F raised.

Again based on what you posted the total mintage of RS, F raised and F incuse 1840 Rupee coins is  109 million.  Are there any figures showing how many RS 1840 Rupees were minted?

What would the order of rarity be between RS, F raised, F incuse and plain (am I missing any other)?

Here is the catalogue entry for William IIII one Rupee.

[abhinumis]

I was getting the coin back to the guy who sold it to me when I decided to look again at the coin because of the perfect ping test and weight and diameter( 30.5 mm in dia and 11.6gms in wt) of the coin.. I wud post the coin again after scanning it again and u won't believe the results and all the faults pointed out by Islamda and Harry is gone. Guess that happens when light falls on the coin at different angles. would post the image soon. I believe the coin is a william rupee with thin lettering variety. refer to Baldwin site for more details or pridmore
cheers 

[abhinumis]

Hi I believe I have type 1 reverse and type E or F obverse. I don't think a modern fake can incorporate such fine details like a extra small berry in the reverse. please see the baldwin site.
I wud love all of ors advise on it
cheers 

[akona20]

Folks, if you look at the dotted border around the coin you see all the dots. They have not joined at any point. This shows that either the coin was pretty much original, weight size and ping or the caster of the coin was an absolute master (but would fail the ping test). A master caster like this would not be playing with a coin like that.

The edge of the coin should also be photographed to see if there is a sprue mark or other marks of casting.

[abhinumis]

here is the extra dot around the first two leaves on the reverse as in baldwin site. Can a fake be made so accurate to perfectly corraborate all the facts all at once??

[akona20]

Please see my PM

[abhinumis]

hi all,
here is a pic comparing my coin with an established original coin(Harry's coin). There were certain flaws pointed out earlier, but that I think is due to the coin being photographed in a different angle. Hope this makes it clear. Please do comment
cheers