Lot 2023

Description

Akbar, (A.H. 963-1014, A.D. 1556-1605), silver rupee, (11.0 grams), Saimur mint, Regnal year 47 (1601), month Mihr, (cf.KM. SAC 94, mint not listed). Good fine and very rare.

This mint has been the subject of a number of papers and entries by various numismatic scholars all from the one coin. The coin was first reported by S. H. Hodivala in 1924 in NS XXXVII (p.74 and Plate III, 2). It was a variant type from the issues of years 48 and 49, that he illustrated and attributed to Sitpur (Surat). He read the mint name as 'Samur' or 'Simur'. The date is also very unusual as the 4 in the tens look likes a 5 both in the illustration and in this coin. He at that stage does not attribute it to any mint, but believes it to be either from Sitpur or a blunder but it was 'the only surviving relic or proof of an error which was corrected in the subsequent issues of 48 and 49'. Dr. V.S. Agrawala in JNSI Vol. V, (p.71) ascribed the coin to the mint of Saimur which has been identified with Chaul, a seaport in the Kolaba district of the Bombay State and about 30 miles south of Bombay (near Sitpur, hence the similarity of style copied at Sitpur from the example of Saimur). C.R. Singhal (Mint-Towns of the Mughal Emperors of India, p.4) acknowledges the mint and attributes this issue to the mint, known only from the example of the same date and month reported initially by Hodivala.