Dear sir, My name is Henri-John hermans. I am a young architect travelling arround the world for the past few months. Right now I am in Kuala Lumpur and I was looking for a special gift for my girlfriend. I ran into an antique shop and I saw this coin. You have the pictures in attachement. I would love to have some more information about it. I did a test In a jewellery shop and they said it was white gold. That's all I know about it. I would really appreciate your help, Kind regards, Henri-John hermans Sent from my iPad
I suggest you start looking in the coins of the Mughal period (1500's to 1700's?) in India and see if you find a match. While a few of us here have some interest in Indian coins we tend to stay with ancients a thousand years older than these and really know little about this period. I do not recal reading about such coins in white gold but silver is expected. If the jewler who provided the white gold assay was also the seller of the coin, I would be suspicious. https://www.google.com/search?q=mug...bih=475#tbm=isch&q=mughal+square+coin&spell=1 The above images and the pages they link to might be of interest.
I agree with Doug. No ancient coins were white gold, so whoever said that is lying to you. The coin pictured looks like a silver Mughal piece. Some ancient and medieval coins were debased gold, but they always tried to keep them gold colored as much as possible. No ancients ever tried to make white gold, since that would destroy the value of the gold inside. By the way, the history of white gold is during WWII platinum, which previously had been popular in jewelry, was unavailable. They made white gold then as a substitute for platinum. I do not think ancient or medieval people even had a notion of what white gold would be. So, bottom line, any time someone tries to tell you a coin is white gold, you are sure of one thing, the man is a liar.
Terminologies of the jewelry industry include many colors of gold alloys including some I can not understand the need in normal uses. Most ancient gold was rather pure or alloyed with red copper or silver (called electrum but colored according to the ratios). The important precious alloys to learn are 'fools gold' (not gold at all) and 'German silver' (not silver at all). Like all coins, I suggest we buy gold and anything else of value from a trusted source.
Attribution is not that difficult guys, the year is written on the coin (AH 999 = 1591AD). It's a silver square rupee in the name of Mughal emperor Akbar, AH999, Ahmedabad mint.
Aw, come on, we got "Mughal", right? We were in the ballpark. Btw, thanks for the attribution. I admit I just cannot get much traction on Indian coins after the kidarite/Scythian/hunnic issues.
Well, the islamic issues are not my primary focus but there are some with very beautifull calligraphy. And there are other later Indian coins you might even find nice. Like this one with goddess riding a peacock:
Interesting coin! Is your girlfriend a collector? Only asking because, as a collector, I have given coins as gifts and the recipient reaction often lacked enthusiasm.
We still have the problem we had when CT lumped ancient and world into one group but now the question is when 'World' takes over. 1591 is well after I would call the start of modern. While I have a very few Islamic coins, that takeover is generally where I drop out because it consistantly meant a change in the coinage that was significant. Maybe it is my having no desire to learn Arabic? We seem to be moving toward World being defined as Euros and contemporary coins as was the original (and still posted) CT intent: "Discussion relating to world coins. Including, but not limited to, the new Euro coins." I do have a few coins of the modern world; I even just got an 1806 half cent which was part of the world back then. Perhaps it would be best if those of us into 'Ancients' would just ignore posts on modern coins and wait for one of you who finds them appealing to stumble on the question.
Guess we are never going to agree on any time border between periods. Good thing is we don't have to. When i say i focus on ancient India i know my personal definition is "until the time of the Delhi Sultans". For others the cut-off point may be the beginning of the Mughal Period. Fine with me. However, i tend to believe that the ancient collectors are more prone to look over their own borders than the real modern colectors. Hence the quick sucesfull narrowing down here to "Mughal". So i don't mind seeing a late medieval coin here once in a while. The other coin i showed here dates from around 1700AD. But i like it because of it's ancient characteristics.
