The Vasudeva I imitative drachms are not official royal issues but copies — struck by local or regional authorities who lacked sanction from the Kushan court yet needed small-denomination copper for everyday transactions. Vasudeva I reigned into the early third century, but his image continued circulating on imitative types for well over a century after his death, a measure of how thoroughly his iconography had saturated the monetary culture of the northwest Indian subcontract.
Mitchiner's AC#3440 grouping covers considerable typological variation, and attribution of individual pieces to specific sub-regions remains contested.
The Vasudeva I imitative drachms are not official royal issues but copies — struck by local or regional authorities who lacked sanction from the Kushan court yet needed small-denomination copper for everyday transactions. Vasudeva I reigned into the early third century, but his image continued circulating on imitative types for well over a century after his death, a measure of how thoroughly his iconography had saturated the monetary culture of the northwest Indian subcontract.
Mitchiner's AC#3440 grouping covers considerable typological variation, and attribution of individual pieces to specific sub-regions remains contested.