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 - 3 Swami Type
| Issuer | Madras Presidency (British India) |
|---|---|
| Year | 1691-1740 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | 1 Pagoda |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Weight | Log in to see details |
| Diameter | Log in to see details |
| 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 | Central deity Tirupati Balaji (Venkateswara) depicted in high relief within a stylised temple shrine, flanked on either side by his consorts Shri Devi and Bhu Devi, collectively forming the three-figure 'Swami' composition characteristic of this issue. The figures are rendered in a flat, archaic South Indian artistic tradition typical of hammered gold pagodas of the Madras Presidency period. The field surrounding the figures is plain and unadorned, consistent with the crude die-work of this series. |
|---|---|
| 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 | Log in to see details |
| Mint | Log in to see details |
| Mintage | ND (1691-1740) |
| Additional information |
The Madras Presidency pagoda coinage was not a British invention — it was inherited wholesale from the Vijayanagara tradition and maintained deliberately to avoid disrupting the currency conventions of south Indian merchants who refused to accept unfamiliar coin types. The East India Company struck these pieces because trade demanded it, not because London had any particular interest in issuing gold with Hindu iconography.
KM#289 spans nearly five decades of production, making precise attribution to a single year essentially impossible without die study. The Company's Madras mint records from this period are fragmentary at best.