1 Rupee - Shah Alam II Pattern

Shah Alam II was the Mughal emperor who, after the Battle of Buxar in 1764, became effectively a pensioner of the East India Company — a political reality this coinage quietly encodes. The Company continued issuing coins in his name for decades after he held any real authority, a fiction that suited both parties. Pattern pieces from 1793 reflect the Company's ongoing experiments with mechanized minting at Calcutta, where Matthew Boulton's technology from Birmingham was being evaluated for adoption.

Pridmore 358 is among the documented trial pieces from that process, never entering general circulation.