1 Rupee - Shah Alam II Bareli mint

Shah Alam II was Mughal emperor in name only by the 1770s — effectively a pensioner of whichever regional power held Delhi at the moment. Awadh's Nawabs struck rupees in his name as a matter of political legitimacy, not imperial loyalty. The Bareli mint operated under Rohilkhand's complex jurisdictional history; the region had been conquered by Awadh's Shuja-ud-Daula with British East India Company assistance in 1774, bringing its mints into the Awadhi monetary orbit almost immediately before this issue's production window opens.