Prithvi Narayan Shah unified the Kathmandu Valley's three competing Malla kingdoms between 1744 and 1769, and coinage was an immediate instrument of consolidating that authority. The Mohar had circulated in the valley for generations under separate Malla rulers in Kathmandu, Patan, and Bhaktapur, each minting their own issues — replacing them with a single Gorkhali coinage was as much a political act as an administrative one.
KM#454.2 distinguishes itself from the .1 variety by a specific arrangement of the decorative elements in the field, a distinction that matters considerably for attribution given how many related types were struck in rapid succession during these founding years of the Shah dynasty.
Prithvi Narayan Shah unified the Kathmandu Valley's three competing Malla kingdoms between 1744 and 1769, and coinage was an immediate instrument of consolidating that authority. The Mohar had circulated in the valley for generations under separate Malla rulers in Kathmandu, Patan, and Bhaktapur, each minting their own issues — replacing them with a single Gorkhali coinage was as much a political act as an administrative one.
KM#454.2 distinguishes itself from the .1 variety by a specific arrangement of the decorative elements in the field, a distinction that matters considerably for attribution given how many related types were struck in rapid succession during these founding years of the Shah dynasty.