1/2 Silver Rupee - George VI Transition Pattern

The 1946 transition patterns for British India were struck in anticipation of the coinage reforms that would follow independence — at the time still a year away but increasingly inevitable as the Attlee government moved toward partition. This particular piece, catalogued under Pridmore's pattern references, represents one of several experimental strikings produced as the Bombay and Calcutta mints worked through proposed specifications for a post-imperial coinage that, in the event, would be divided between two new nations.

The .800 silver standard used here was already a reduction from earlier fineness — a practical concession to silver economics in the final colonial period.