One of the more interesting coins I've acquired is a silver rupee struck in Szechuan, China for the Sino-Tibetan trade in the very early days of the twentieth century.

According to the late Eduard Kann in his "Illustrated Catalog of Chinese Coins" he mentions the fact that the British East India Company rupee dated 1840 enjoyed wide circulation in Yunnan Province and the Chinese-Tibetan border. The wonderful head of a young Queen Victoria adorns the obverse.

The Chinese authorities decided the time had arrived for them to mint their own rupees around 1903 and this actually lasted until 1930. The early pieces were struck in very fine silver while the later war lord issues became cruder in design and debased silver. Using a British India rupee of 1862 -82  depicting a crowned Victoria bust as a model they copied her in great detail but replaced the crown with a simple Mandarin hat. The image actually was intended to depict the Chinese Emperor Kuang-hsü. The reverse floral sprays were also copied but the denomination was replaced with four Chinese characters "Szu-ch'uan Shan-tsoh" which means "made in Szechuan" more or less. These rupees and the fractions thereof are listed under "Tibet - Trade Coinage" in the  "Standard Catalog of World Coins" while the fantasy crown or dollar sizes in gold and silver are found listed under "China" in "Unusual World Coins" as X # M440 - X; M445.

Both series were struck in silver and gold but what really surprised me was the specific gravity test results we got here in the office for this example. Unknown to us at this time this piece is struck in silver on the French Indochina coinage standard of 0.8350 fineness.

In today's marketplace a collector can find all sorts of rather "exquisite" shapes of coins including the more "exotic" shapes such as enameled guitars. Throughout the centuries coins were predominately circular in fashion but did include the occasional special square or rectangular flan. Likewise, tokens are found in square, triangular and rectangular forms, and this usually related to the different denominations within a series for easy identification.

During the eighteenth century the hammered coinage of the various kingdoms in South Asia were for the most part rather round but did include the occasional special square issue. Usually the dies were 150% or so larger than the finished strike leaving us with certain coins lacking full inscriptions or dates.

Decades ago my favorite "stop and shop" was with David Laties of Educational Coin Co. then located in Kingston, N.Y. During one visit while sitting at an antique dining room table moved out on a porch for more sunlight David dropped off a rather heavy bag of silver octagonal coins in four different sizes. Obviously my questions were "what and where from?" He replied "try Assam - an  old kingdom located near Burma." He also dropped off a copy of the third edition of W. D. Craig's "Coins of the World, 1750-1850" and asked if I could try to sort them out.

After a few hours I was able to sort through the pile and noticed the obverse always had the honorific title of "Shri" or "Shri Shri" starting the inscription. The following characters indicated the ruler's name so there were rows upon rows on the table. Next on the agenda was to sort them by date or no date. What really made it easier is that all the intended inscriptions and date, if intended, were completely within a dotted border carried over to both sides. The numerical characters are only typical to the area.

I found these to be very intriguing and ended up taking about a third of the pile home with me for dealer stock.

For a rather unusual example here is a 1/4 rupee measuring 14 x 14mm struck in the name of Sunyeopha alias Lakshmi Simha who reigned from Saka 1691-1702 (AD 1769-1780). But this particular coin has a problem with the date located on the lower reverse as it is completely retrograde 1696 (reading from right to left) which determines that it is a contemporary forgery.