Madras 1748 10 cash
This specimen was lot 2599 in Stephen Album sale 50 (Santa Rosa, CA, September 2024), where it sold for $240. The catalog description[1] noted, "MADRAS PRESIDENCY: AE ten cash (Dudu), 1748, balemark with GCE within decorative border // date between wavy lines; struck at the Fort St. David mint during the French occupation of Madras, VF-XF, R, ex Solar Collection." This type was struck intermittently 1693-1748. The Madras mint, a facility of the British East India Company, minted cash under license from the Mughal emperor since the seventeenth century. The mint's struggles to produce enough coinage led the directors to place a contract with Boulton and Watt in England in 1794 for 1/96 and 1/48 rupees, which constituted the first milled coinage for India.
Recorded mintage: unknown.
Specification: 8.21-8.35 g, copper, this specimen 8.52 g.
Catalog reference: Stv-5.4, KM-291, Prid-41.
- Michael, Thomas, Standard Catalog of World Coins, 1701-1800, 7th ed., Iola, WI: Krause Publications, 2016.
- Stevens, Paul, The Coins of the English East India Company, Presidency Series: A Catalogue and Pricelist. London, Spink & Son Ltd, 2017.
- [1]Album, Stephen, Joseph Lang, Paul Montz, Michael Barry and Norman Douglas Nicol, Auction 50, featuring selections from the Dr. Robert A. Rosenfeld Collection, the Hakim Hamidi Collection, the Almer H. Orr III Collection and the Solar Collection, Santa Rosa, CA: Stephen Album Rare Coins, Inc., 2024.
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