Bombay Presidency, AE 4 Pice

[capnbirdseye]

Bombay Presidency, AE 4 Pice

This is a heavy coin weighing 40.75g, I've owned it for years but considered it too poor to post. However these are quite scarce and nearly always turn up really worn.
There is only one on zeno but this one looks a bit different as it shows a rim with very little space under the balemark to add the date. On the reverse should be a number 4 above Adil but it's missing. I have the 1/2, one and double pice of this series, all in much better condition

[jkk]

The heart-shaped device is interesting. I don't know how common it is.

[capnbirdseye]

The heart-shaped device is interesting. I don't know how common it is.

The heart shape is called a balemark, it contains the initials of the United east India Company, here is the 2 pice for comparison

[jkk]

Thanks, Vic. I probably saw it before and have forgotten, and appreciate the refresher.

[Figleaf]

The term "bale mark" betrays its primary use. In earlier centuries, shipped goods were delivered "on quai", i.e. they were considered delivered when they had been offloaded and put on the quai unsorted. A local agent of the company would pick them up there. To identify which bales, crates etc. belonged to which company, they were marked with a bale mark.

The bale mark evolved to - in modern terms - a logo that could be put on anything to indicate that the object it figured on was property of the company.

In the case of the EIC, the bale mark was a heart shape with its initials inside, topped by the "mystical sign of four" with a + sign on the horizontal bar at its right. This symbol is a degenerated Chi-Rho cypher. Therefore, in combination with the heart, the whole symbol refers to the sacred heart, an important symbol of the christian religion. It survived the reformation, perhaps because Lutherans continued to use it.

Peter