1/2 Rupee / Deb Period III

Obverse description	Irregular hammered flan bearing a central rectangular cartouche containing Tibetan script characters rendered in bold, angular strokes. The design is arranged within a rectilinear framework of raised lines forming a geometric border. The overall appearance is characteristic of the crude hammered coinage of Bhutan's Deb period, with the die impression offset slightly on the irregular flan. The field surrounding the central cartouche shows minimal detail, and the flan edges are irregular and ragged as typical of this issue.
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Mintage	ND (1835-1910)
Additional information	Bhutanese coinage of this period was produced entirely by hand, using locally cast dies with no standardized striking apparatus. The result is that no two examples are quite alike in shape, centering, or die alignment — a characteristic that confounds graders accustomed to machine-struck coinage. The "Deb" in the designation refers to the Druk Desi, the secular ruler of Bhutan, whose authority over coinage ran parallel to that of the theocratic Je Khenpo throughout this era. The seventy-five year span assigned to this type reflects the near-impossibility of dating individual strikes with precision.