1/2 Tanka - Ala al-din Mahmud Shah I

The Malwa Sultanate's billon coinage from this period reflects the fractured monetary environment of central India in the mid-fifteenth century, when regional sultanates struck their own issues largely independent of Delhi's declining authority. Mahmud Shah I ruled Malwa from 1436 to 1469 — one of the longer and more stable reigns of the dynasty — during which the sultanate held its own against both the Bahmani Sultanate to the south and the Sharqi rulers of Jaunpur.

The 40 rati weight standard ties this piece to a pre-Mughal indigenous system that persisted stubbornly in central Indian minting practice long after it had been displaced elsewhere.