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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;EWC3, post: 4502807, member: 93416&quot;]Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, &quot;and what is the use of a book,&quot; thought Alice, &quot;without pictures or conversations?&quot;</p><p><br /></p><p>Joking aside, - I spent thousands and thousands of hours making pictures of coins for collectors in my day job, I am retired, and already paid my dues on that score. And anyhow – this group is awash with people all too willing to put up coin pictures, but I see a lack in the department of explaining the role they played in past economies. So that is where I spend my time.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>But to me that sadly says most about the limitations of the modern collector. There are people who struck more coins than Alauddin – Wang An Shih certainly, Alexander very probably - but really it can only be a handful. Possibly no Roman emperor. Anyone genuinely interested in the history of coinage really has to take notice of him.</p><p><br /></p><p>Since you (very kindly) picture his dugani – let me say a little more about it. As I said before, he did what Diocletian could not do – he stopped inflation in its tracks. Even in his own day that was considered something of a miracle. But lets look more closely at how and why he did it. Firstly he had top tier coins – pure gold and silver tankas – for the use of the Afghan military ruling class – and primarily to fund their ability to put cavalry in the field. He specifically held prices down so that he could maintain his mounted soldiery at a cost the treasury could afford. He did this by promoting commerce amongst the Hindu subject population. All with jital weight coins, the better quality ones being over valued by just 64/60 against the pure silver tanka. The basic one, the dugani at 72/60 against the pure silver tanka. He surely got for himself more power than Diocletian – but it was exactly by using his power wisely – he never tried to over-value his billon coins by more than 20% (unlike a whole bunch of Romans).</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Hmmmm. Shakespeare very probably had heard something of Alauddin – the Merchant of Venice very likely takes up his idea - that thieves should have the weight of any stolen merchandise cut from their bodies. No doubt he would be judged a psychopath by today’s standards. But does that make him a “Bad King”?</p><p><br /></p><p>Lets take an unvarnished look at him. When the Mongols went against China they killed millions. When the Mongols went against Afghanistan they killed millions. Tamerlane took Delhi with just 15,000 horse and with great bloodshed – a century after his death. But when the Mongols sent 40,000 horse against Alauddin, he made a tower of their heads and wrote to the Khan - complaining about the insult - of sending just 40,000.</p><p><br /></p><p>I never saw that he acted cruelly for its own sake. He was a kind of superman really – a ‘just psychopath’ maybe. I judge India was fortunate to get &quot;a real leader&quot; at that time, and was very lucky not to have had a Nero instead – they seem to be two a penny.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>A hobby of mine is searching web groups worldwide to see if there is anyone at all with a good grasp of general numismatic metrology. Been doing it for 20 years. So far I found one guy.</p><p><br /></p><p>Keynes seems to have decided round about 1926 that part of his plan for the political economy was to destroy people&#039;s understanding of historical metrology. Who would have thought he could pull it off so successfully! But I spose, gvts generally prefer that people have no grasp of what they are doing with the economy, even concerning rudimentary matters from long since.</p><p><br /></p><p>Anyhow Doug – do you really not own a silver tanka of Alauddin?! If you send me a postal address off-group, I will send you one when I get round to visiting the post office again – a reward for being such a good sport, (despite your misguided views on Nero’s leadership qualities&nbsp; <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie1" alt=":)" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" />)</p><p><br /></p><p>Rob T[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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