Featured Tiny Indian gold fanam, the "World's Smallest Coin", Rajas of Cochin circa 1600-1800

Hello! Here is a piece I wanted to share with everyone. I'd also appreciate any opinions, feedback, or other examples of these small gold coins! It appears to have a lot of varying details and information online and I just wanted to try to compile everything here and see what looked right.

0.39 g | 8 mm
AV Vira Raya Fanam
Issued under the Zamorins of Kalicut and the Rajas of Cochin
Cochin Mint Type
N.D. circa 1600-1800

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I posted this coin in a FB group looking for ID and authentication help. Several people weighed in and thought it looked good and one person shared the below portion of Mitchiner's Oriental Coins and Their Values: Non-Islamic States & Western Colonies.

From Mitchiner's portion it appears to be a 1586 type; the gold fanam struck by the indigenous kingdoms of Kalicut and Cochin. Mitchiner claims these indigenous coins, called the Vira Raya type, were used as the prototype example for the Dutch India mint in Cochin and shows several of these types. The Dutch coins appear to be of silver and copper and it is not clear from this whether there were gold fanams struck at the Dutch mint in Cochin.

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Looking further online, there are dozens of examples of these coins going to auction. Above is one example with quite a lot of information. The listing calls this a gold fanam from the Dutch India mint of Cochin. The auction also gives an interesting date of circa 1688-18th century.

So now, I'm confused at the difference between the Dutch India gold fanams and the Cochin & Kalicut gold fanams. The auction example looks closely similar to Mitchiner's indigenous example as well as fairly close to mine. One possible explanation is that gold fanams that are attributed to the Dutch Indian mint in Cochin were actually issued under the indigenous Cochin and Kalicut Kingdoms.

Both Cochin and Kalicut were heavily tied up in Dutch colonialism and Cochin was even occupied by the Dutch during the time frame given by Mitchiner (1600-1800). It's possible the kingdom cities were still able to produce their own coinage during these times. Mitchiner says that the Dutch imitated the coins in their own mint of Cochin and then lists silver and copper imitations. It makes sense to me that the gold fanams were either solely produced by the indigenous kingdom or, if they were made by the Dutch, they appear to be identical.

Digging to the more community side of sources, I went to Numista where I found around a dozen similar looking pieces from all different mints such Cochin, Kalicut, Tuticorin, Vijayanagara, and most interestingly, the Kingdom of Hoysala (1026–1343 AD).

Both the Cochin and Kalicut Numista pages point to KM#10 which points to the British Protectorate portion of Cochin. Krause lists the date as 1795-1850, which again doesn't really clarify anything. See the Krause listing here, on NGC's Price Guide site.

Just in August, member Muhammad Niazi posted a thread titled "cochin fanam or coorg" where he posted the below photo. His example appears to be the closest to mine that I could find. It has the distinctive straight "J" symbol on the reverse and the right hanging arm on the obverse. Notice some differences such as the second branch off the J on my example and how the dots in the obverse right arm are symmetrical in his example but tighter in mine. He attributes it as Cochin issue.

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The last thing I want to share is this page from LakdivaCoins Collection. I stumbled upon from the Numista page for Kingdom of Hoysala issues from 1026–1343 AD. The page gives a good history and summary of the gold fanams and their relevance to Sri Lankan coinage and gold fanams issued there. LakdivaCoins Collection brings several useful bits of information.

This portion discusses the varying designs and explains how some of the fanams have the J tail and some (like Muhammad Niazi's and mine) are straight "like a crocodile".

Finally, the long-lusted answer to the age old question of "how did they not lose them"/"how is that even practical".

This part is possibly the most important. It explains how so many of these coins are available at such reasonable prices. Last year I was sent a fake gold fanam from an Indian eBay seller. Sorry for the poor photos below. Luckily it was a completely separate coin than the one listed in the photos and description so eBay was quick to give me the money back. I am also somewhat relieved by the thought that the fake fanam I received was an obvious fake and very distinguishable from both my example and other pieces I see online. Album's quote above still makes me wonder about the authenticity of the other pieces, however.





At the end of this research, I'm still unsure of the role of the Dutch mint in the Cochin AV fanams and I'd love some opinions and further information. Thanks for reading this!

 

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Here are the 3 that I have. Never weighed them but they are very tiny. Nice write up.

 

I recall quite a few years ago reading that building work in India uncovered a large hoard of fanams, and although the Indian government should have got them it is believed that the workes made off with a large proportion of the hoard. This seems probable as it was about the time there were many small and large lots of assorted fanams appearing on the British coin market. The flood subsided, as they do, but it must have hugely increased the numbers in collections.

It is possible the hoard story was a fabrication to cover a mass of fake fanams. I bought a handful at the time and they seemed OK to me, but I may have been wrong. I had same XRF tested, they were high carat gold.

 

Excellent examples! Do you know what mint they are or what they are attributed to? I appreciate the post.

Very interesting theory and it would make a lot of sense to create a rumor like that. Thanks for weighing in and sharing. Also interesting and reassuring that the XRF testing came back positive.

 

No, I have never gone that far. I acquired them at a club auction a few years ago because I thought they were neat.

 

Ah understandable! They definitely are neat and your examples in particular seem very aged and look clearly authentic to me. Really great little collection there.

 

Because of the size of the pictures the average person can't appreciate how small these are. My 3 are in 1 dime-sized 2X2 with plenty of room to spare.

 

Absolutely true; they're terribly small. Here is a size comparison of mine to a dime. Also, I wanted to add a new photo I took of the fanam (slightly more clarity) but it won't let me edit the top post so I'll put it down here.

 

Thanks for the post and the hard-won research. I saved your opening comments as a PDF for my own reference files.

 

Nice examples! Ihave even some 1/4 AV Fanams. Here is an AV 1/2 Fanam from Maratha Confederacy in name of Mughal Emperor Shah Alam II.

 

Hi

I have a tin of about 60 fanums that belonged to a lady who used to work in Southern India in the early part of the 20th Century. I used to play with them as a child, not knowing what they were and have only recently rediscovered the tin, which she left to me. How would I go about finding out more about them? Any contacts?

Many thanks!

 

Hi Seaton! Glad you found this thread! I think the best step if you're interested in learning more about them would be to get Hans Herrli's book Gold Fanams, 1336-2000. It seems to be about the only standard reference that puts any effort towards unraveling the series that I am aware of. I had it for a few weeks after I wrote this article (thanks to my local library) and didn't get time to really read into it but he does a great job breaking it down and lists tons of varieties, it's a great book. As for contacts in terms of selling the lot or possibly finding more information, perhaps Scott Semans World Coins or Steve Album Rare Coins would be good fits.