Friday, October 31, 2008

one rupee British India King George V 1918 silver coin

My collection is more on silver coin and straits settlements coin. One of them is this one rupee British India King George V 1918 silver coin. I bought this coin this year in penang. I don't know much about this coin until I Google it recently. This coin history making them more interesting.

India coin

George V

This indian rupee is also called "pig rupee". Why? The first year of issue (1911) has an elephant on the Kings robe that was considered to resemble a pig, thus the variety is known as the "pig rupee" (Type I). This variant is also on the 1/2 Rupee, the 1/4 Rupee, the 2 Annas and the 1/4 Anna coins. The elephant figure was redesigned (Type II) and this design was used on all issues starting in 1912.

Mine is aType II with a new design of elephant and mint in bombay. The Rupee was minted in both Calcutta and Bombay. There is no mint mark for Calcutta. The Bombay issues have a small dot on the reverse under the ornate near the bottom of the coin (see illustration).