PREVIEW: THE PUDDESTER COLLECTION PART ONE 8-9 FEBRUARY

Of the vast and impressive single-owner Puddester collection of coins of the East India Company Noonans will offer on February 8 and 9, Peter Preston-Morley, Special Projects Director in the Coins department, has a personal favourite.

The silver pattern double rupee struck at Pulta in 1784 by John Prinsep, an East India Company merchant and the first person to put together a proper mechanical mint in India, takes the honours.

“This coin is so far ahead of its time, it’s unreal,” says Mr Preston-Morley. “Nothing else like this was being made in India at the time, and it even had an edge inscription, which is something that had not really been achieved with any great success up to that point in time.”

Struck in the name of ‘Shah ‘Alam II (1173-1221h/1759-1806), 1198h, yr 26, it was one of a series of silver patterns that Prinsep had struck in his bid to convince the Calcutta Board to let him produce a new silver and gold coinage for Bengal as Calcutta mint master after the former incumbent, James Paxton, resigned in 1785.

Prinsep was even prepared to instal his equipment at Calcutta, if necessary, as it was far superior to anything that Calcutta possessed. However, his campaign was hampered by his simultaneous dispute with the Calcutta Board over the coinage contract he had been granted in 1780, which the Board was trying to terminate.

The pattern coins were duly despatched to the Court Directors in London for inspection, but to no avail as Prinsep failed to secure the appointment. Instead, Herbert Harris won the post and by the spring of 1785 had travelled to Pulta with the intention of moving Prinsep’s equipment to Calcutta. Despite Harris’s failure to do so, he did acquire a set of the silver patterns – perhaps Prinsep’s own set – and it is likely that they were instrumental in influencing the new Calcutta coinage of 1790.

“This is a really fabulous coin, and I will be very jealous of the person who ends up buying this at the auction,” concluded Peter Preston-Morley.

The estimate is £30,000-50,000.