Starting a website about coins of India

I would like to start a website on princely state coins and independent kingdoms coins of India. Please let me know what do you expect in such a site. I'd try to create one on the basis of that.

 

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Biju,you already have got a website in relation to this; www.princelystatecoins.com .

Aidan.

 

Aidan, thats only a test page. Thats not what I have in my mind. I'm quite new in web designing..

 

that is awesome. Goodluck with your website Biju.

 

Great idea! I was always looking for a website with ancient indian coins, esspecialy post-Kushan period, Gupta empire, some Indian states. I saw many sites with Indian coins, but I still haven`t found what I`m looking for.
Why? How to recognize in lot of 50 the same silver old Indian coins a coin of Viyayasena or Rudrasena II without sanscrit knowledge? I can read Russian and Greek, but Indian sanscrit inscription?
So I think it will be great to enclose ancient Indian coins identifier.

 

It's not a test page,but a very good foundation!

Biju,it doesn't look like a test page to me.In fact,it looks like the start of a foundation to what could be a very interesting website,as it is already very well laid out so far.Keep it up,as eventually,you will get better.If you need a hand with spelling,please feel free to ask any British Commonwealth member,as we all follow the good old-fashioned British Commonwealth English spelling convention - 'Colour' as opposed to 'Color','Labour' as opposed to 'Labor',& so on.

Aidan.

 

Thanx for the encouragement,Aidan. I can handle the spelling quite well.. Actually, I've got a post graduation in English Literature. And I do follow British English.. But, if there is a doubt, I'll be contacting you all for help.

 

Sanskrit is not a difficult language to learn, especially if you want to read the scripts only. But the knowledge of Sanskrit alone will not help you much in identifying the Indian coins. You should have knowledge in Tamil and Arabic/Persian apart from Sanskrit/Hindi. Knowledge in Tamil will help you in identifying almost all the South Indian coins. Arabic and Persian are almost similar. Also, Sanskrit is very much similar to Hindi. I can read and write Tamil, Malayalam, Hindi and Sanskrit apart from English. So, I need to learn Arabic.. I only know that it is read from right to left. Knowledge in Sanskrit will be helpful in understanding some of the other languages such as Bengali, Marathi, Gujarathi and Rajastani.

 

Biju,have you thought about building a website for the coins of India itself? You wouldn't want to list coins & banknotes of the Bengal,Bombay,& Madras Presidencies on the Indian Princely States coin website,as the Presidencies were not Princely States.

In the Indian Princely States coin listings,you would have to have information divided by reign,then by coinage,& then by denomination.Under each denomination listing,you would have to have date charts.

For example,you would have under the 1 Kori of Kutch,you'd have to arrange the listing like this;
'KM' catalogue number,'VS' date,'AH' date,& regnal year.In the banknote chart,it would be a 'PS' catalogue number instead of a 'KM' number.

What do you think?

Arabic numerals are very easy to read.If you have a copy of the Krause catalogues,there is a numeral chart near the front.There is also an 'AH' date conversion chart in the back of Krause.'AH' stands for 'Anno Hegeriae (Hegira Year)'.It is a lunar calendar of 354 days,which is why you will sometimes find the date of one calendar mixed with the date from the previous year or the following year in some cases.

Aidan.

 

Good advice... thanx Aidan. I'd definitely include the presidencies.
And about Arabic, its easy to understand the numerals. But its a different thing when you try to read the letters. Well.. for me atleast.. :headbang:

 

I think the most difficult thing for me would be to find some good pictures of these coins. I've already approached couple of collectors and they refused to take images. Well, I think, may be because of security problems.. So, I'd need to collect as many pictures as possible.

 

If you want a hand to read Arabic,you can get in touch with Giladzuc,as he can read Arabic.You can post him photos of your coins & banknotes that you want identified.He will reply with the translation in both Arabic (in the English alphabet) & in English itself.

Aidan.

 

I would very much like to see a website like the one you propose. Three things that would be great to see on such a site:

1) Pictures of the coins. I understand you say this could be difficult, but its difficult to grasp coin descriptions without a visual.

2) Geographic reference. I find Indian history a bit disorienting graphically, because so much is happening, and overlapping, within a restricted geographical area. It would be great to have some maps.

3) Translations, as you propose above. I've tried translating various Indian dialects on the coins I have, its a bit daunting. For example I can't make out the line of non-Arabic script on my avatar (tanka from Islam Shah (1545-1552AD)). Arabic is not that difficult in theory to read, but many letters have four different forms depending on where they sit in the word, short vowels are not written, and often words are crammed in at odd angles. Its more a task of recognizing patterns, for example the words 'shah' and 'mohammed' become clear after seeing them enough times, even though the word itself might look highly abreviated. I have variable success at translating Arabic on these coins. Giladzuc makes rather quick work of it, I've noticed.

 

Acanthite,Biju is going to find out when each state came under British suzerainty & he would be able to divide each Indian Princely State's listings into coins issued independently,& those issued after coming under British suzerainty.British Commonwealth collectors would find these websites very useful.

Aidan.

 

Aidan, thats what I'm exactly intended to do.. And about Arabic, I've contacted a collector here and he offered to teach me scripts.. I hope it would work. And I'd need the help of Giladzuc, I think.. :smile

 

You can try sending me PM's on questions about Arabic as well, in some cases I might be able to help. Good luck with your plans:thumb: .

 

It's a nice looking tanka and scarce then his father's "Sher Shah's" common tanka. The last line on your coin is written in devanagari script (i.e in Hindi) and it reads "Shri Islam Sha Shu" which translates to "Shri Islam Shah Suri". Shri is a honoring title which is given to an elder person in family.

The date on this coin looks like is AH950 and I think it was his 1st year as a Shah of Delhi. Nice coin.

Regards
Ballabh Garg

 

Well, I can't promise for all images you need for your site, but sure can provide you the images from my own collection. Let me know which princely state you will be working first.

And Good luck for this web-site.

Regards
Ballabh Garg

 

Excellent, thanks, Ballabh, for the translation. I tried linking the symbols to devanagari and couldn't work it out. Though the date on the coin looks like 947AH to me, that would place it before his rule. I think his first year was 951 or 952AH.

 

There is already a very nice web-site owned by Dr. Paul Stevens for coins issued under these Presidencies (except Bengal Presidency) and the uniform coins issued from 1835 till 1947 under British rule. I think Dr. Paul is planing to include Bengal Presidency coins too in near future on this site.

This site has lots of historical details about the mints which were operational under these presidencies and can be used as a reference guide for these presidency coins.

Regards
Ballabh Garg