Medieval India. Western Gangas. Gold elephant.

This turned into a great "elephant coin" thread.

I have not had any on ancients, alas. Did have one of those WW2-era Belgian Congo hexagonal pieces with a heffalump on it, once, but that's about all.

Considering I lived in Tanzania as a child, not far from the Serengeti National Park, and routinely saw elephants, I should add a coin with one one of these days!

 

That shouldn't be so surprising. My collection has been so far mostly (though not exclusively) Western-oriented and admittedly a bit Eurocentric. It consists heavily of stuff I have a little bit of experience collecting in the past (Roman Imperials, UK, USA, for instance), but I'm always trying to branch out a little. It's what being "eclectic" is all about.

Near- and Far Eastern coins, as well as coins of the Islamic world, are, as I mentioned recently in another thread, somewhat out of my comfort zone due to my ignorance of non-Western writing styles. While foreign languages do not intimidate me, I'm much more out of my depth when I stray outside the Roman or Cyrillic alphabets (though I've tried- so far unsuccessfully- to pick up at least a minimal familiarity with the Greek alphabet since their ancient coins offer so many masterpieces).

Of course the coins of the Near and Far East and Islamic worlds offer every bit as much historical diversity, and often some lovely designs as well. So I'm not prejudiced against them. Just much, much less experienced.

I did make one exception for my Box of 20 not too long ago. That coin is sold now, but I enjoyed it while I had it.

 

Ah, I remember this thread now. Thanks for putting these elephant pagodas on my radar.