India 1 Dollar / 2 Rupees 8 Annas Pattern Coin

[Kid Romeo]

I just came across an old but interesting article today about the Indian 1 Dollar pattern coin (Pn 117/118/119/120). This pattern coin is valued $2700 by Krause and I never knew it existed 

Source: The Hindu Business Line

As early as in 1863, a suggestion to establish a dollar coin within the Indian monetary system having the value of double rupee, was made by the Bombay Government. This was soon after (1862) the takeover of the East India Company, replacing the company's monetary system and also the private banks' currency.

The `dollar' patterns were prepared by A.P. Spencer, Chief Engraver, His Majesty's Mint, Calcutta, who engraved the coins of King George VI in 1938 and 1947. These patterns carry the portrait of the King on the obverse side and value in English and Persian, 1 dollar/2 rupees 8 annas, India and year 1941. The first type depicts 1 in the centre, while the second shows it on the right side, sporting an entirely different look. The reason for such a preparation was totally different. Till 1941, the Indian economy was not seriously affected by World War II. However, more demand to produce coins of other nations and the pressure on the minting capacity and machine power increased.

[Rangnath]

Gosh, I never did either! 
I wonder what it would fetch should it go to auction today?
richie

[Galapagos]

That's a wonderful find, KR. So does that mean A.P. Spencer designed the stylised tiger on the reverse of the ¼ rupee, ½ rupee and 1 rupee? I've always wondered who did that. I'm also curious about who designed the rhino on the modern 25 paise, but I've never been able to find out.

[Oesho]

There were even three patterns prepared. One with the large nummeral 1 in the centre, a variety in with the value RUPEES is spaced so that only half of the letter S is on the left side of the large numeral 1 and the pattern as shown above.
For full details, see Pridmore: The Coins of the British Commonwealth of Nation, Part 4 India, volume 2: Uniform coinage (London 1980), p.86 Patterns for a silver dollar, Pr. #1088A, #1088B, #1089.

[Kid Romeo]

That's a wonderful find, KR. So does that mean A.P. Spencer designed the stylised tiger on the reverse of the ¼ rupee, ½ rupee and 1 rupee? I've always wondered who did that. I'm also curious about who designed the rhino on the modern 25 paise, but I've never been able to find out.

I wish I knew Rupert but I don't. 

[MS]

A bit off topic but have a look at this 25 rhino made into a pendant.

[Bimat]

There was a 2 Rupees 8 Annas banknote too,I remember I have seen one in one of the auction here.I was told that this banknote will fetch at-least 3 lakh Rupees
Why did they choose dollar as currency and not Pound?

A bit off topic but have a look at this 25 rhino made into a pendant.

Good one! An Italian girl will love to receive this one from her bf (just for 15$,excluding shipping)

Aditya

[Kid Romeo]

There was a 2 Rupees 8 Annas banknote too,I remember I have seen one in one of the auction here.I was told that this banknote will fetch at-least 3 lakh Rupees

Adi, if you click on the article source, you'll find mention and image about the 2 Rupees 8 Annas banknote which was equivalent to $1 of that time.
IMO the British government was planning to phase out Indian Rupee with Indian Dollar to replace its trade dollar and use Indian Dollar instead.

[Figleaf]

It wouldn't surprise me if 2 rupees and 8 annas were the Rupee/Straits Dollar exchange rate. Such a coin would have been highly useful for paying migrant labourers who wanted to send money home. I am thinking specifically of the big plantations in South-East Asia, where payment in Straits dollars was another means of wringing money out of kuhli labour. The coin would have been acceptable on the plantation, in the Straits Settlements as well as in India. This would also imply that this is not an Indian coin, but a Straits coin with an exchange rate added.

For the same reasons, the dollar mentioned on the pattern could have been the Chinese dollar, but as this is clearly a British colonial coin, it would probably not have been accepted at face value in China.

Peter

[Oesho]

I presume it is more likely to have an Indian equivalent of the British Trade Dollar. Most of the British Dollars were also struck up to 1935 at Bombay mint.

[Figleaf]

Yes, the Bombay mint played an important role there, but by 1941, the idea of the Trade Dollar was quite dead. It was supposed to wrest market share from the Spanish colonial pesos, replace pesos (they were still being used in the Straits, Singapore and Hong Kong) and if possible to capture a share of the Chinese market. All this was superbly unnecessary in 1941. The peso had disappeared, the Chinese were minting their own silver coin and the Straits dollar was well established.

Peter

[Bimat]

14 AUG, 2011, 06.20AM IST, VIKRAM DOCTOR,ET BUREAU

How dollar was almost issued by India once

Jason Goodwin spent his first dollar in Ahmedabad station. As he recounts in Greenback, his excellent history of the US dollar, this was when he was a 17-year-old British kid backpacking across India and he fell sick in Ahmedabad.

Wanting only to get out of Ahmedabad and to Bombay, a common sentiment, he tried buying a train ticket, but the ticket clerk said there was nothing for two days. The clerk changed his mind after Goodwin gave him a green banknote. "I was impressed by the dollar's power to bend the rules, even miles from its home," Goodwin writes.

Many of us may have had similar moments, mine was given to be allowed to climb up the tower of the Bab Zuleywa gate in old Cairo. There are many reasons why the dollar is distinct, it has enduring value. A specimen from 1863, issued in the middle of the American Civil War, would be better off in a collection, but it would be technically useable, which is hardly the case with other countries which have changed currencies for reasons like inflation, integration (the European Union), independence and decimalisation.

That last reason was historically another reason why the US dollar stood out among major currencies for being decimal, right from the start. When parts of the British Empire like Canada, Australia and New Zealand abandoned British pounds sterling for a more rational decimal currency, they all ended up choosing to call their currency the dollar.

It could have happened in India as well. Decimalisation was always planned after Independence and before it finally came, in 1957, the government did consider, not an Indian dollar, but a rupee divided into 100 cents. Even before this, there actually were fairly advanced plans for an Indian dollar, though this was not in the context of decimalisation, but the coin shortage during WWII.

"The Government proposed to issue an Indian 'Dollar', worth two rupees eight annas, as a measure to economise on the production of metallic one rupee and eight annas coins," explains Shailendra Bhandare, assistant keeper (South Asian Numismatics) at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.

Indian Dollar

Bhandare, who is one of the foremost experts on Indian coins, says the dollar plans were at quite an advanced stage when, inexplicably, they were dropped. The few Indian dollars actually struck, with an Urdu inscription reading 'Dhai Rupiya', were never formally issued, but are still among the rarest specimens for collectors of Indian coins. Malcolm Todywalla, of Todywalla Auction House, specialist coin auctioneers, says that the last time any came up for sale was around 10 years back.

Source: Economic Times

[Figleaf]

What the journalist describes as an advantage, the unchanged image of the US dollar notes, I would consider a drawback. US dollar notes where long the easiest to fake. Accepted wisdom in the banknote world is that banknotes should be updated regularly with new security features, as forgers get more and more sophisticated.

Peter

[brokencompass]

I think the clout of the dollar is much more than just because of it's decimal system. I think it greatly came with the US military success of the world wars, Hollywood and also because of most Allied European countries shipping off their gold to the US. It by de facto because the world's reserve currency. Also because of the The Bretton Woods system that was introduced at that time where dollars could be redeemed for gold. In the 20's Americans were not allowed to own any gold coins too, all of the gold coins issued until then were confiscated, melted down and stored in Fort Knox. So all dollars that were issued, were issued with the backing of the gold.

[Figleaf]

True all, but consider also that Indians were working in many countries, notably in plantations in South-East Asia (Malaysia and Indonesia, at the time the Straits Settlements and the Netherlands Indies come to mind). They were sending money home in Straits dollars, which were known and accepted in India, China and many other countries. In other words, Indians dealt n Straits dollars, not in US dollars.

Peter