2017-08-21 Mon

The ripples of time can turn mighty empires to ashes and their truth transforms into legends. Long ago when the mighty Mughal Empire was at the height of its power a man stepped on the Indian shores. This traveler was Vasco da Gama who discovered the sea route to India. Due to these different merchants from all over Europe found a new way to trade. The most know traders to India in coming years would be the British's and their joint stock company created to carry trade with West Indies called East India Company (EIC).

This trading company traded silk, cotton, indigo dye, tea, and salt but they wanted to establish an accurate trade in West Indies. To achieve this they set footing in India and expanded its trading borders by 1642. The result of these strategies gave its fruit when EIC gained the trade monopoly in India.

They not only traded in Indian market but they also gained territories in India like Madras, Bombay and Bengal presidency. These presidencies had their own coinage under the East India Company but later a unified coinage came into effect in 1835.

The first coin issued by EIC was minted in Calcutta. The mints responsible for minting coins for the East India Company were in Surat, Bombay (Mumbai) and Ahmadabad. British sent their metal bullion to the Surat mint to be turned into gold mohur and silver rupees in 1621 to 1800.

Surat mint was not able to meet the criteria of demand and supply, in 1636 silver was sent to Ahmadabad mint. Later on, East India Company started a mint in Mumbai wherein their European style gold, silver and copper coins were minted.

The gold and silver coins were called Carolina and Anglina. The copper denomination was called Copperoon and Tin denomination was called Tiny.

To know more about East India Company's coinage click here.