Did you know that India had dollar as its currency???

Did you know that India had dollar as its currency???

As early as in 1863, a suggestion to establish a dollar coin within the Indian monetary system having the value of double rupee was made by the Bombay Government. This was soon after (1862) the takeover of the East India Company, replacing the company's monetary system and also the private bank’s currency.
The `dollar' patterns were prepared by A.P. Spencer, Chief Engraver, His Majesty's Mint, Calcutta, who engraved the coins of King George VI in 1938 and 1947. These patterns carry the portrait of the King on the obverse side and value in English and Persian, 1 dollar/2 rupees 8 annas, India and year 1941. The first type depicts 1 in the centre, while the second shows it on the right side, sporting an entirely different look. The reason for such a preparation was totally different. Till 1941, the Indian economy was not seriously affected by World War II. However, more demand to produce coins of other nations and the pressure on the minting capacity and machine power increased.

"The Government proposed to issue an Indian 'Dollar', worth two rupees eight annas, as a measure to economise on the production of metallic one rupee and eight annas coins," explains Shailendra Bhandare, assistant keeper (South Asian Numismatics) at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.

 

Indian Dollar

Bhandare, who is one of the foremost experts on Indian coins, says the dollar plans were at quite an advanced stage when, inexplicably, they were dropped. The few Indian dollars actually struck, with an Urdu inscription reading 'Dhai Rupiya', were never formally issued, but are still among the rarest specimens for collectors of Indian coins. Malcolm Todywalla, of Todywalla Auction House, specialist coin auctioneers, says that the last time any came up for sale was around 10 years back.

"Today one of those Indian dollars would easily fetch around Rs 15 lakh," he says. This was not the only time Bombay Mint struck dollars. Much earlier, from the end of the 19th century, the British had struck what were known as 'trade dollars', to be used solely in the Far Eastern trade. Silver dollars were struck in the Bombay and Calcutta Mints right up to 1935. These trade dollars are, in a sense, the precursors of the dollars of Singapore, Hong Kong and Brunei.

The more surprising story though, and one which takes us back to the origins of the dollar, is of the Maria Theresa dollars struck in Bombay. The Maria Theresa dollar is one of the world's most famous coins, mostly because of its strange after-life.

Source: Economic Times

Did you ever imagine “India and Dollar” Truly reality surpasses the imagination this time.