1/2 Anna - Shivaji Rao

Shivaji Rao Holkar ascended to the Holkar throne in 1886 under a cloud of dynastic uncertainty — the British had passed over other claimants, and his reign would prove turbulent enough that they eventually forced his abdication in 1903. This issue belongs to the opening years of that reign, when the Indore mint was still producing copper coinage in denominational fractions calibrated to the older pre-metric anna system that the princely states were slow to abandon.

KM#34 is not a rare type in circulated grades, but problem-free examples with full copper surfaces are harder to locate than the census suggests.