1 Pagoda

The Madras Pagoda predates British India's currency unification by decades — the East India Company continued striking it well into the nineteenth century largely because local merchants and temple economies in South India refused to accept Company rupees at par. The pagoda had circulated in the Carnatic for over two centuries before this issue and carried a trust that no administrative decree could quickly replace.

The series was formally demonetized following the currency reforms that consolidated Company territories onto a rupee standard, ending a gold coinage tradition that stretched back to Vijayanagara.