British Indian and Mughal Coins

Alexandrina Victoria, universally known as Queen Victoria , reigned as Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 1837 until her death in 1901 . Her remarkable 63-year reign , remembered as the Victorian Era , witnessed unprecedented industrial, scientific, political, and military transformation, alongside the rapid expansion of the British Empire. In the Indian subcontinent, her reign encompassed the transition from the administration of the East India Company to direct rule under the British Crown , making Victorian coinage one of the most historically significant and extensively studied series in British Indian numismatics. For numismatic purposes, the coinage of Queen Victoria is generally classified into four distinct periods. The first, 1840-1850 , is known as the Continuous Legend series of the East India Company, characterised by the uninterrupted legend VICTORIA QUEEN encircling the Queen's portrait. This was followed by the Divided Legend series ( ...

The English East India Company (EIC) gradually established its commercial and political influence in India during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Although the Company received permission from the Mughal Emperor Farrukhsiyar in 1717 to strike Mughal-standard coinage at the Bombay Mint , its early issues faithfully followed the established Mughal monetary tradition . These coins bore Persian inscriptions in the name of the reigning Mughal Emperor and did not display the Company's name in English. It was not until 1835 , during the reign of King William IV , that the East India Company introduced a unified coinage explicitly bearing the inscription "East India Company" in English. Consequently, any coin carrying the Company's English title together with dates significantly earlier than 1835 requires careful numismatic scrutiny. Among collectors, a distinctive group of copper tokens is frequently encountered bearing dates such as 1616, 1717, 1818, and 1839...