I get sort of a feeling of Indian Princely States, but even if I could read the script, that picture is too fuzzy.
New Pics Certainly has the feeling. Please examine "new pics"; your help would be appreciated. P.S.: There are some additional pics on here that exceeded the "5 max" attachments. View these and the ones under "New Coin Pics", main site.
It's actually a copper pysa from Zanzibar, a sultanate off the coast of Tanzania annexed by the British in 1890. It's dated AH 1299 which is equivalent to 1881-82 AD. There were 4.64 million minted of the one year type and it is worth about $1 in that condition. You might also try a library for a copy of the Standard Catalog of World Coins for pictures, values and lots more interesting info.
TBirde, Liked your original guess better, but thank you for the identification help. Let me know if I can do anything for you.
Tbirde nailed it. From the World Coins forum of CoinPeople.Com -- the site is now closed to posting -- I cut and paste this about the Pysa: Several years ago, at the Michigan State Numismatic Society Annual Convention, Clifford Mishler gave a talk at the Educational Forum on the future of collecting. He started with a bit of personal history. When he was about 12, he spent the summer with relatives who were stamp collectors. That did not interest him, but he did discover numismatics. The first coin he bought was a 1 Pysa bronze from Zanzibar 1883 AD (1299 AH) of Sultan Barghash ibn Sa'id. It seemed exotic and rare. It cost one dollar. The dollar was much bigger back then, but it seemed like a good price. "It is still a good price," I piped up. "I just bought one. They are still a dollar." Last week, I found one in a dealer's junk box for a quarter. Now I have two. A picture of the coin is here: http://www.ancientcoins.ca/19368.jpg ($12.50 in Extremely Fine for this coin.) A shorter history of Zanzibar is here: http://www.fact-index.com/z/za/zanzibar.html A longer history is here: http://www.zum.de/whkmla/region/eastafrica/zanzibar181586.html Zanzibar is still an interesting place. "Sultan Barghash was particularly extravagant, and adopted a more elaborate style of living than previous Sultans, with the construction of several new palaces. In 1883, he built Beit el-Ajaib, the House of Wonders..." (http://zanzibar.net) Michael
