The East India Company's Madras Presidency coinage of the 1820s was in the process of being rationalized toward a unified subcontinent-wide decimal system — a project that would eventually produce the pice and anna series under Crown authority after 1858. The 4 Pies denomination sat awkwardly in that transition, equivalent to one-twelfth of an anna, a fraction that suited local bazaar commerce but resisted tidy decimalization.
Struck at the Soho Mint in Birmingham under contract, not at Madras itself.
The East India Company's Madras Presidency coinage of the 1820s was in the process of being rationalized toward a unified subcontinent-wide decimal system — a project that would eventually produce the pice and anna series under Crown authority after 1858. The 4 Pies denomination sat awkwardly in that transition, equivalent to one-twelfth of an anna, a fraction that suited local bazaar commerce but resisted tidy decimalization.
Struck at the Soho Mint in Birmingham under contract, not at Madras itself.