The Puddester Collection (Part I)

East India Company, Bombay Presidency, Early coinages: English design, copper Pice, 1788, one side countermarked bomb 1788 in two lines within dotted oblong stamp, small numerals in date, 12.91g (Prid. 117, this coin illustrated [not in Sale]; Stevens 2.123 [= Horizon I, 119, same die]; KM. 191, this coin illustrated). No trace of undertype, old surface pitting otherwise good very fine with dark patina, an attractive example of this great rarity £2,000-£2,600

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

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Collection

J.B. Caldecott Collection, Sotheby Auction (London), 11-13 June 1912, lot 55 (part)
V.M. Brand Collection, Sotheby Auction (London), 14 June 1985, lot 166.

Owner’s ticket.

Literature:
Illustrated in Fred Pridmore, The Coins of the British Commonwealth of Nations...Part 4, India, Volume I, p.161.
Illustrated in George Cuhaj et al, South Asian Coins and Paper Money, Indian Edition, Iola, 2013, p.438.



Described as a pattern by KM. and some other recent cataloguers, probably because no records appear to exist which explain the reason for their production, it seems likely that they were the result of a request from Tellicherry to Bombay, in April 1788, for more pice or, quite possibly that they were struck at Tellicherry, where Bombay pice passed freely. Weights of the known specimens vary markedly and this example might have passed as a double-pice, as the cataloguer of the Brand collection postulated