1 Fanon Pondichery

The Compagnie des Indes obtained the right to strike coinage at Pondicherry in the late seventeenth century as a commercial necessity — Indian merchants distrusted company scrip and demanded specie for trade. The fanon denomination itself was adapted from local Tamil monetary custom, not imported from France, making it one of the few European colonial issues where the denomination structure was entirely dictated by indigenous commercial practice.

The .948 fineness closely mirrors contemporary South Indian silver standards, a deliberate concession to bazaar assayers who would reject anything measurably below local norms.