Fanam - Tipu Sultan Patan mint

Tipu Sultan's fanams were part of a sweeping monetary reform he imposed after taking power, replacing the coinage of his father Hyder Ali and introducing a new calendar, new weight standards, and new mint names — Patan being his designation for the town the British called Chitaldrug, captured from the Maratha-backed Nair chief in 1779. The reform was as much administrative assertion as fiscal policy.

Tipu's gold fanams circulated alongside a parallel copper and silver system that never fully integrated, leaving the fanam to function primarily in local bazaar trade across Mysore's interior.