The Puddester Collection (Part I)

East India Company, Bengal Presidency, Calcutta Mint: Third milled issue, silver Pattern Rupee, unsigned, for the Calcutta Mint committee [1818], Company arms, auspicio . regis . et . senatus . angliæ [By the authority of the King and Parliament of England] around, rev. calcutta rupee above zarb kalkata [struck at Calcutta] within wreath, edge straight-grained, 28.7mm, 11.68g/12h (Prid. 361 [Sale, lot 681]; Stevens 6.9, this coin illustrated; Pridmore, SCMB 1961, pp.145-7; KM. Pn26). Tiny spot in wreath at top right, otherwise brilliant and practically as struck, attractively toned, an exceptional example of this excessively rare and significant coin [certified and graded NGC PF 63+]
£24,000-£30,000

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Puddester Collection.

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Collection

V.M. Brand (Chicago, IL) Collection
F. Pridmore Collection, Part II, Glendining Auction (London), 18-19 October 1982, lot 681, ticket.

Owner’s ticket.

Literature:
Illustrated in Paul Stevens, The Coins of the Bengal Presidency, pp.260 and 291
Illustrated in Paul Stevens, The Coins of the English East India Company, Presidency Series: A Catalogue and Pricelist, p.88.

In taking a step towards unification of the currency in British India, the gold and silver coinages were reviewed in 1818 along with a move to issuing coins with straight-grained edges and raised rims. Specimens of the proposed new coinage, to a heavier weight-standard but following the previous designs, were sent to the mint committee in August 1818 but, prior to that, Pridmore (SCMB 1961, pp.146-7) suggested that the mint committee had toyed with the idea of changing the design to one ‘more consistent with the dignity of the British Government of India, to authorize its own currencies by its own peculiar stamp and impression’. Such a suggestion, combined with a desire to test the new edge-marking machinery, would seem to have resulted in the few patterns of this type which, retaining the old rupee weight-standard, would appear to have been struck in the period May-August 1818