Eric Shipton was a British mountaineer in the 1930's. In 1934 he and a partner, H. W. Tilman, three Sherpas, and some porters went to find a way to climb India's highest mountain, Nanda Devi, which was also the highest mountain in the British Empire at that time. The men successfully found a way to approach the mountain but did not climb it. Shipton wrote the book Nanda Devi, published in 1936, about his adventures on the trip. Early in the trip, his group had to pick up some money to pay the porters, at that time the money had to be in silver coin as the porters would not take paper money. From Shipton, Nanda Devi, Page 53 of the first edition: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ...and finally a careful estimate of the cash which would be required over the next five months had to be worked out and the amount obtained, almost entirely in coin, from the local native bank. Since this was not a correspondent of our Calcutta bank we had been compelled to draw all our money from there in notes and travel up with them in our pockets, a proceeding we found very wearing indeed, and we now discovered that the process of exchanging these for silver was a lengthy one owing to the many spurious rupees in circulation in India. The Sherpas willingly assisted at this business, and were far quicker at spotting duds than we were, rejecting all doubtful ones without ado. At first our feelings were hurt at seeing any money we tendered being scrutinized, rung on a stone, bitten or otherwise tested, but we soon found it paid us to do the same. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In 1936, Tilman (without Shipton) went with a group to Nanda Devi and climbed it. A British India rupee that would have been around at the time of Shipton's trip. British India Rupee 1919 Now, does anyone have a rupee with bite marks on it?
Very interesting story - can imagine it must have been fascinating travelling through India then with all the different princely states that issued their own coins. Hyderabad was the only state that issued paper money and it is pretty pricey these days.
