1 Cash

The Nawabs of the Carnatic occupied an increasingly awkward position across this period — nominally Mughal vassals, then effectively clients of the British East India Company, all while maintaining the fiction of autonomous rule from Arcot. These copper cash pieces were the smallest denomination in daily circulation across the eastern Coromandel Coast, where they changed hands in bazaars trading textiles that were already being routed through Madras for European export. The series spans the reigns of multiple nawabs and is complicated by inconsistent mint supervision, producing considerable variation in fabric and weight even within nominally identical issues.