Gigantic Mughal Mohurs

I didn’t wanted to highjack the other thread, but would like to quote couple of paragraphs written by Michael Bates who is curator of Islamic coins in ANS and prepared the catalog for this auction in 1987.

“I can add a little bit--not much--to the story of the giant mohurs offered at auction by Hapsburg-Feldman in 1987. I first heard about them in the early eighties, when an Arab friend mentioned on several occasions that he had been offered the two coins but could not bring the sellers, or their agents, down to a reasonable price. Then towards the middle eighties, I was taken in a small elevator deep below Geneva to a bank vault where I was able to see the coins themselves and hold them in my hands. Almost dropped the big one, too--1000 mohurs of gold are a lot heavier than they look. I've seen the same reaction when privileged visitors to the Federal Reserve Bank vault in New York are given a gold ingot to hold.”

“I was asked to write part of the Hapsburg Feldman catalogue, in the form of a general history and discussion of giant Islamic presentation or donative coins. Such coins are mentioned in the early and later histories, but the only survivors are from modern times.”

“Those two pieces, the 1,000 and the 100, were offered together as the unique single lot in the auction. As far as I remember, the Indian government may have taken notice when the catalogue came out, but they were not able to act fast enough to stop the auction. I was told authoritatively (by a principal in the affair) that the high bid, I think $9,500,000, did not meet the reserve. I have heard various explanations of the affair, including the one that the auction was held only to establish a price and enable the pieces to be used as security for a bank loan. I'm dubious about that. I spoke to Hapsburg and to Feldman in the preparation of the catalogue, and they certainly seemed genuinely excited about the sale as a reality. Later, I heard that the pieces came from the treasury of the family of the Nizam of Hyderabad.”

“The legal case was brought by the Indian government and proceeded very slowly. Just two or three years ago, the US Attorney's office in New York City sent me a four-page questionnaire, on behalf of the Swiss court handling the case, for a written deposition about my knowledge of the case.”

Hopefully this will give some additional information about those mysterious mohurs.

Regards,
Ballabh Garg

 

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Thanks Ballabh,
That's quite interesting.
richie

 

Anyone have a link to the other thread?

Interesting article. It doesn't match the reports in CW ad NN at the time of the sale. According to them the coins were offered as seperate lots with bids of 2.8 million and 8 million respectively. They report that the reserves were four million and ten million respectively. (Note that 8 million bid was before the juice. If they had accepted it it would have been 1.2 million more than the 1933 double eagle brought 15 years later. The 1933 may hold the record for the highest priced coin SOLD at auction, but it doesn't, in my opinion, hold the record for the most valuable coin.)

 

Unfortunately I haven't read the reports published in those magazines, so can't say anything about them. It depends on the resource from which those magazines get the reports. By any chance do you know if the report was published in 1987 or before?

One more fact about these two giant mohurs is that in 1987 these were being auctioned second time by Hapsburg-Feldman.

Couple of years before this, the same two coins were assigned to “Spink and Sons” for auction. They produced a very beautiful leather bound book which is considered as "the most beautiful numismatic publication" ever. This book had color plates of the coins with the translation of poetic couplets of these coins. I don't know if in Spink's auction these coins were offered separately or as a group.

Since Spink were unsuccessful in selling the coins; couple of years later these coins were assigned to Hapsburg. Hapsburg produced a two page catalog (which was prepared by Mr. Bates of ANS) for this auction. I have seen this two page catalog and agree with Mr. Bate’s statement that the two giant muhars were offered as a single lot in that auction.

Regards,
Ballabh Garg

 

Has anybody seen image of these coins?

 

As the scope of this thread is not limited to the two coins appeared in auction in past. There are few other giant muhars known in few museums and private collections.

I have seen a 200 muhar coin in "Banaras Hindu University" museum in Varanasi, India several years ago. That was a beautiful coin to view.

Few years back the same coin was pictured on the front page of a book on Mughal coin which I scanned and am attaching below. This is a 200 muhar coin issued by mughal emperor Shah Jahan.

Obverse:


Reverse:


Regards,
Ballabh Garg

 

i wish i had that for my collection would certainly make me jhappy. ballabh do you know of a palce where ic an get high qulaity mohurs at reasonable prices?

 

Published Nov 25th 1987 and it was the report of the Nov 9th Hapsburg-Feldman sale in Geneva Switzerland.

 

Thanks for the additional info. I will try to get a copy this magazine.

Regards,
Ballabh Garg

 

I've learned something new here. When I saw the two coins, they were in an expensive leather briefcase lined with foam covered with velvet, with two depressions the right size to hold the coins. The leather book was in the case above the coins (no, not touching them or rubbing against them!). In fact, even the leather case may have been custom made for the book and the two coins--I don't quite remember now.

I did not then know where the book came from. It was my impression that it was a single copy, or one of a very few copies. It may well have been made for Spink. At that time, by the way, Spink had an office or representation in Zurich. A friend who consulted for Spink on a regular basis was the intermediary who introduced me to the Swiss lawyer who took us to the bank and down to the safe deposit area, retrieved the coins and allowed us to examine them (myself, the lawyer, and the Spink intermediary). I did not examine them carefully or try to decipher the inscriptions, since all that had been done. I was and still am curious to know how such objects were made--I would guess with some sort of simple drop press that raised the upper stamp and dropped it on the disks of gold. In fact, the overall production was not perfect. There was some double stamping and areas not fully struck up. One would expect the Mogul emperor, doubtless the richest and maybe the most powerful man in the world at that time, to insist on something better, but these were "mass" produced objects, not only for single gifts to princes and ambassadors. They were storage ingots as well, made in the dozens I suppose if not in the hundreds or thousands. Someone could make a discreet hole in a bag of 1000 gold mohurs and carry off a few coins, but no one would run off with one of these.

I'm almost positive, however, that Spink never went public with these coins. They may have shown them privately to potential buyers, like the shaykh who had talked to me about them long before I saw them, but there was no auction.

Michael L. Bates, Ph.D.
Curator Emeritus of Islamic Coins
The American Numismatic Society

 

Your comment is quite incorrect. You may wish to refer back to the long quotation from me posted by Ballabh Garb at the beginning of this thread. I never mentioned Spink there. In my comment yesterday, I was responding specifically to Ballabh Garb's statement that Spink had prepared the coins for auction, which may well be true, but I didn't know previously what relationship they had to the coins, if any. As for the Spink auction that Mr. Garb mentioned, I think we all would have known about it if it happened. The only auction was the Hapsburg Feldman event in 1987.

Michael Bates

 

First, Welcome to this group, Dr. Bates.

Regarding your enquiry about Spink's auction, I have to go back to my notes (gathered sometime in late 2004) to find the correct source of this information. I recall that it was a personal message either from admiral Khan Shaib or late Bill Spengler. I will get back to you in a day or so.

It's quite possible that spink's may be a "private auction" just like Habsberg's auction in 1987 which was also a "private auction".

Regards,
Ballabh Garg

 

Dr. Bates, thank you for taking the time to be part of this forum.

 

http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00routesdata/1600_1699/jahangir/hugecoin/hugecoin.html

I posted this allready in the "other post" But this article gives a good background on the giant mohurs for those such as I who have never heard of these.

 

Interesting