Paisa - Shah Alam II Gwalior Fort Mint

Shah Alam II was the Mughal emperor in whose name Indian princely states continued striking coins long after he had ceased to exercise any real authority — and in some cases, long after his death in 1806. Gwalior's persistence in invoking his regnal era well into the 1850s and 1860s reflects the legal fiction that local rulers maintained Mughal suzerainty, a convenient arrangement that increasingly satisfied no one once the British Crown assumed direct sovereignty following the 1857 uprising.

The Gwalior Fort mint operated under Scindia control throughout this period, its output rarely consistent in weight across the run.