Catalog
See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration!
or register with email
Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!
1 Pagoda
| Issuer | Madras Presidency |
|---|---|
| Year | 1740-1807 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Weight | Log in to see details |
| Diameter | 12 mm |
| Thickness | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Log in to see details |
| Technique | Log in to see details |
| Orientation | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Standing figure of Lord Vishnu facing forward in the center of the field, depicted in stylized form with attributes held in each hand, flanked on all sides by a granulated border of raised pellets arranged in a circular pattern around the deity, filling the field to the coin's edge. |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Log in to see details |
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Log in to see details |
| Reverse script | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Edge | Plain |
| Mint | Log in to see details |
| Mintage | Log in to see details |
| Additional information |
The Madras Pagoda was not a British invention — it was inherited. The East India Company continued striking it because the coin was already trusted currency across the Coromandel Coast, where it had circulated under successive South Indian dynasties for centuries. Discontinuing it would have been commercially suicidal. The Company simply took over the dies and the denomination, minting at Madras under arrangements that blended colonial administration with deep local monetary habit.
Production finally ended when Company currency was rationalized following the 1806 reforms that pushed toward a unified rupee standard across presidencies.