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Sultans of Dehli,Muhammad bin Tughluq,forced currency Tanka, date??

Started by capnbirdseye, March 18, 2012, 11:51:06 AM

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capnbirdseye

Can someone read the date on this one please, I can see the mint ' Dehli' in the margin but the date eludes me


weight 9.27g   Copper 21mm
Vic

Ansari

Most probably "Saal Hafsad See"  Year seven hundred thirty. But there appears to be something between "Dar" and "see", if it actually is , will be added to 730.

Here is mine.

capnbirdseye

Thank you Tariq, although common these are very attractive coins
Vic

Oesho

The part after si is rather unclear. There could be ek or do written after it.

cmerc

Is there a recommended resource that will help me learn how to read Arabic/Persian dates? I can make out the script (with some help), but would appreciate help in reading the numbers. There are some differences in how the numbers are pronounced now vs. 1000 years ago!
Defending this hobby against a disapproving family since 1998.

cmerc

I think I got it.

Tughluq, AE Tanka
Takhtgah Dehli
hafsaad (si) yek = 731 AH

Weight 8.59 grams, so likely a contemporary forgery?
Defending this hobby against a disapproving family since 1998.

cmerc

Another example

Tughluq, AE Tanka
(Takhtgah??) Dehli
hafsaad (si xx??) = 7(3x) AH

Now I know not to go after such specimens with incomplete legends!
Defending this hobby against a disapproving family since 1998.

Figleaf

Quote from: cmerc on February 26, 2021, 03:55:34 PM
Weight 8.59 grams, so likely a contemporary forgery?

Very few contemporary forgeries are known, which makes sense, because the coins had a hard time being accepted. However, towards the end of the period they circulated, they were produced by provincial mints also. Supervision in those mints was less strict and it shows.

Peter
An unidentified coin is a piece of metal. An identified coin is a piece of history.

Oesho

The forced token currency of Muhammad Tughluq is based on the trust in the Sultan (he who obeyed the sultan obeyed the Merciful One). Making a brass or copper coin equal in value to a silver tanka was disastrous. Copper was plenty available and each and every blacksmith workshop turned into a (illegal private) mint. This was the reason for its fiasco and Muhammad Tughluq was within two years forced to withdraw the forced token currency. All coins were taken in on face value which resulted in the virtual bankruptcy of Sultanate. Hardly no distinguishing between privately produced coins and those struck by the Royal mint can be made. As a large amount of the forced token currency was (illegally) privately struck, it is of no use to talk about contemporary forgeries. The sums of the token currency actually exchanged may be estimated by the mounds upon mounds of coins which were heaped up as mere rubbish in the fort of Tughluqabad, were they were still to be seen a century later, in the reign of Mubarak Shah II.

cmerc

The (official??) weight listed in Goron & Goenka is 9.2 grams, whereas these specimens are ~8.5 grams. I am guessing that this difference is meaningless in trying to differentiate between official issues and forgeries?

In our English class at college, we read the play Tughluq by Girish Karnad. It paints a picture of Tughluq as a visionary who is ahead of his time. However, I personally feel that despite his new ideas, he was despotic and does not deserve much praise. Compare his monetary experiments to the recent demonetization of Rs. 1000 and Rs. 500 by the present Indian administration: ill-conceived and pointless.
Defending this hobby against a disapproving family since 1998.

Figleaf

I think Md. bin Tughluq should not be judged by modern standards. In short, he needed legitimacy - he was the descendant of a slave and the Khalif treated him like ... uhhh ... dirt - which he sought by conquests, in particular, he wanted to take the Chagatai lands, so he needed a great big heap of money for his army. The neighbours, China, had a greatly overvalued brass currency and even paper in circulation.

Md. bin Tughluq was not as good a conqueror as he thought. The attack on the Chagatai never materialised, due to Tughluq indecision (the army had been raised, it just didn't do anything) and Md. bin Tughluq just did not have the same prestige as the emperor of China to support an overvalued currency.

And yet, Md. bin Tughluq had taken a large amount of silver out of circulation and eventually changed the coppers back to silver. In modern terms, that's an interest-free government bond, a pretty cheap way of financing a war, even a war of shadows. Many coppers were not even offered for redemption - to the delight of modern collectors. That amounts to a voluntary extra tax. Good for the state finances also. The Khalif relented and the Tughluq dynasty went on.

I am not aware of enormous amounts of fakes. Indeed, they would have made no sense. Fraudsters will imitate the most valuable coins they can get into circulation unnoticed, not the cheapest ones that were accepted only reluctantly. Previous generations of numismatists assumed that the underweight coins were fakes. Today, there is a tendency to see them as coins from provincial Tughluq mints.

Peter
An unidentified coin is a piece of metal. An identified coin is a piece of history.