New Definitive Issue: 2008: India: New circulation 10 Rupee

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Ten rupee coin to be made available
Aug 3 (IANS)

Noida. Ending a long wait, the ten rupee coin would soon become available in the market, an official source at the government mint here said.

The ten rupee coin will have a diameter greater than that of the two rupee coin. "The weight of the coin would be 8 gram and diameter would be 28 millimetres," the source said.

The mint, located in sector 1 here, has been minting the ten rupee coins for the past seven months on the instructions of the Reserve Bank of India. It now has coins worth Rs.70 million stored in its stock, the source added.

Besides ten rupee coins, the facility is minting 50 paisa coins also to overcome coins-shortage in the market.

The National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, has prepared the design for the ten rupee coin.

Coins are minted at the five Government Mints at Mumbai, Alipore in Kolkata, Saifabad in Hyderabad, Cherlapally in Hyderabad and Noida in Uttar Pradesh.

Coins in India are presently being issued in denominations of 10 paise, 20 paise, 25 paise, 50 paise, one rupee, two rupees and five rupees. Coins upto 50 paise are called small coins and coins of Rupee one and above are called Rupee Coins. Coins can be issued up to the denomination of Rs.1000 as per the Coinage Act, 1906.

Source: Sindh Today

[Rangnath]

YIKES!!! Does this mean that a whole new series of Indian 10 rupee commemoratives is on its way? 
richie

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I believe these are new value circulation coins, not commemoratives and I'd speculate that their introduction is meant to alleviate the coin shortage, which may explain he additional mints. The tone of the article is influenced by civil servant speak ("located in sector 1"), so I expect the information to be indeed from official sources and correct. The message seems to me to be to the coin trading middlemen: don't bother, can and shall drive you out of business soon. This time they mean it.

Peter

[BC Numismatics]

I've been informed that the 10 Rupee coin is actually India's first bimetal coin.I can't remember where I saw photos of it though.

Aidan.

[Rangnath]

I have some general questions. I know so little about the minting of bi-metal coins. 
1. Does the process add much to the cost of minting? A 10 rupee coin would have the face value of less than Euro .16!
2. Does the resulting coin make melting for illegal profit more or less economical?
richie

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1. Does the process add much to the cost of minting? A 10 rupee coin would have the face value of less than Euro .16!
2. Does the resulting coin make melting for illegal profit more or less economical?

1. The cost of minting are increased, but not by much. The blanks for the centre and the ring are produced in the classical way. The only difference in the striking process is that the two parts are brought together. The coins are struck in the classical way. The striking process will fix the centre to the ring. There are now enough bi-metallic coins that I expect that there are specialized presses for them.

2. Melting is a more expensive process, since the two parts should ideally be separated before melting. The melters' ideal is that all metals used can be sold separately. Most melters would not have the equipment to separate the metals, though. Every additional different metal will diminish the value of the melt. In addition, I would expect that both the ring and the centre would be complicated amalgams. Melters prefer plain aluminium coins, even though aluminium commands a relatively low price.

Peter