I mainly collect U.S (I live here) Indian(my nationality) coins. I recently bought a karshapana coin and here are pictures: I love this coin and would like to know more about it. I looked some stuff up online, I was able to find out what some of the symbols were, but not all of them, specifically the one by its self on the reverse. Could anyone tell me more about this coin? basic history, value, what some of the symbols are? Also, could this be a fake, I really hope not, are these coins often faked? by the way it ways 3.3g Thanks.
I'm no specialist here but my guess is Samprati (Mauryan) 224-215 BC or 216-207 BC (depending on which king list you believe). Note that the same coins can come in many shapes so you could fing a square or rectangle with the same marks. There should be 5 distinct marks on one side and one on the other but you sometimes see bankers marks making even the overlapping originals hard to see. There are many fakes but I believe this look perfectly fine. Most fakes I have seen try too hard to make the symbols legible and it is unusual to see a coin with a really good strike of more than a couple of the 5 marks. Here I see the sun (right) and six armed device (upper left), the hill (left) and bull with another skull under his head(above sun and upside down) That leaves the thing just left of the sun and right of the hill which I suspect is what to my eye looks like a house with a tree on top (off flan here). As luck would have it I have two similar coins below but mine show different parts of that last mentioned mark. I show both to make the point that they come square or round. If I'm right on all this, the coin would catalog Mitchiner, Ancient and Classical World, 4195. The denomination is called Karshapana or 32 rattis. My having two when I have so few punchmark coins suggests this is among the most common types and adds to the theory that the coin is certainly genuine. If I were going to all the trouble to make these, I'd make something more rare and expensive. Compared to some rulers of the dynasty, Samprati ruled for a short time so I can not explain the coins being so common. I found interest that this article lists him as ruling for 9 years but comments that the Jain tradition says he ruled 53 years which would certainly explain the coins being common. I don't know but suggest you could possibly enjoy studying more about him. Wikipedia is rarely a place to answer all your questions but can be a good place to start if you know as little as I do. Enjoy both the coin and the study. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samprati
Aren't the square shaped ones earlier than the round ones? I thought I read before that Indian coins started by cutting strip, but after a while, (since the Indians started later than the Greeks or Chinese, though still independently), they ran across round coins so started making their round. I have a few examples, basically similar to Doug's second example. For common examples, they run around $20-30 I believe. Btw welcome Joedas. I don't collect Indian coins specifically, but Central Asian and as such there is quite a bit of overlap, especially when some cultures move to India. Examples would be Indo-skythian, Indo-Greek, and Indo-sassanid. Basically Indo-anything.
I do not believe the shape has anything to do with date. Mitchiner shows round coins from the archaic period (500's BC) as well as from Chandragupta and Ashoka (earlier Mauryans) but all Mauryans are more common squared off. I believe the most common shape is rectangular with a clipped corner which I assume was done to correct the weight. The few coins I have were selected because I felt I could ID them. Easily 90% of the punchmarked coins I see strike me as unintelligible. Often the sun and 6 armed device are all that I see clearly and all Mauryans have those two. Dealers rarely know enough to ID these so I buy coins that I hope I will be able to figure out and leave the ones that look difficult. That probably means I will miss anything rare that requires effort to read. I have paid over $10 for only one of my examples but see many for $20-30 that are no nicer. Dealer who know the series have rare ones much higher. I recall seeing one for $995 but I was not tempted to buy it. :rollling:
Ok, thanks Doug. Were the round ones clipped from metal or cast? They appear clipped, which is why I thought maybe the square ones would have been earlier issues.
