The Uniform Coinage of India, East India Company, Victoria, gold Mohur, 1841 [1850+], type II, Calcutta, bust left, ww [William Wyon] on truncation, victoria queen divided, date below with stop to right, 4 plain (no upper crosslet), rev. lion walking left, palm-tree behind, east india company above, palm frond not under a of india, one mohur, yek ashrafi in exergue, edge grained, 11.65g/12h (Prid. 22 [Sale, lot 12]; SW 3.7; KM. 462.1; F 1595a). About extremely fine £2,000-£2,600

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Puddester Collection.

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Collection

Sir John Wheeler Collection, Baldwin Auction 22 (London), 2 May 2000, lot 204 [from Spink June 1977].

Owner’s ticket and envelope.

In 1846 the Court of Directors of the E.I.C., reacting to a request from William Forbes at Calcutta for the appointment of a competent European-trained engraver to the Mint staff, countered by asking for a supply of dies and matrices from William Wyon. The first of these were received in Calcutta in December 1849, but problems with the convexity of the reverse dies when paired with obverses meant that Kasinath Das had to copy Wyon’s originals. The first coins of the new types, with divided obverse legends, were struck in July 1850