The Puddester Collection (Part I)

East India Company, Madras Presidency, European Minting, 1803-8, Soho, copper 20 Cash, 1803, heavy issue, arms and supporters, east india company above, date below, rev. bist kas chahar falus ast [Twenty cash make four falus], xx . cash in exergue, 11.98g/6h (Prid. 190 [Sale, lot 384]; Stevens 5.110; KM. 321). Extremely fine, a hint of original colour £60-£80

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

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Bt R. Weir (Unionville, ONT) August 1998.

Owner’s ticket.

The English entrepreneur Matthew Boulton (1728-1809) received his first coining order from the Company in 1786. Once his Birmingham manufactory had been established, Boulton’s coins were sent to St Botolph’s Wharf in London and thence shipped to the Far East on the Company’s vessels. Robert Wissett (1750-1820), the Company’s secretary who was Boulton’s chief contact, had enquired about the possibility of a coinage contract for Madras at the turn of the century, but Boulton’s full order book meant that it was another two years before such an order could be considered. Sir Charles Wilkins (1749-1836), the Company’s librarian and a noted linguist, designed the coins, the dies for which were engraved by the sculptor John Phillp (1778-1815), an employee of Boulton. The three larger denominations were struck first, the initial order arriving at St Botolph’s Wharf in early November 1802; the tiny Cash coin was problematic to make and it was not until January 1803 that Boulton devised a way of manufacturing them, but ultimately almost half of the entire order, which amounted to a total of 37,936,000 copper coins across the four denominations, comprised these single Cash. A second order of coins for Madras was first mooted in September 1807, but delays caused by the decision as to whether Boulton or the Company would provide the copper for them meant that coining did not commence until late in 1807 and continued until February 1808. Subsequently two further batches of coins were struck, in June-July 1808 and December 1808 to June 1809, and it is these that are almost certainly of the lighter weight standard; in all a total of 86,515,000 1808-dated copper coins were struck. A large percentage of the light issue was lost in the sinking of the Admiral Gardner, a Company ship, on her sixth voyage to the East, on the Goodwin Sands on 25 January 1809. Currency coins dated 1803 and 1808 are common in low grades but difficult to find in EF or better condition as they saw a wide contemporary circulation