The Puddester Collection (Part I)

East India Company, Bengal Presidency, Saugor Mint: First Phase, Rupee, in the name of in the name of ‘Shah ‘Alam II (1173-1221h/1759-1806), 1819, yr 55, sikka zad bar haft kishwar saya faz ilah hami din muhammad shah alam badshah saugor [defender of the religion of Muhammad, Shah ‘Alam emperor, shadow of the divine favour, put his stamp on the seven climes, Saugor], rev. zarb ravishnagar sagar sanah 55 julus maimanat manus 1819 [struck at Farrukhabad in the 55th year of his reign of tranquil prosperity, 1819], 11.02g/10h (Prid. – [not in Sale]; Stevens 8.137; Kulkarni, Numismatic Digest 12-13, pp.119-22, this coin; KM. –). Punchmarks on edge, otherwise very fine and exceptionally rare, only 3 specimens known [certified and graded NGC XF Details: Shroff Marked Edge] £1,500-£2,000

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

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With R.D. Shah (London)
Taisei/Baldwin/Gillio Auction 25 (Hong Kong), 4 September 1997, lot 676, label.

Owner’s ticket and envelope.

Literature:
Illustrated in Prashant Kulkarni, ‘Saugor Mint and the E.I.C. Coins’, Numismatic Digest 12-13, p.120
Illustrated in Paul Stevens, The Coins of the Bengal Presidency, p.483
Illustrated in Paul Stevens, The Coins of the English East India Company, Presidency Series: A Catalogue and Pricelist, p.164.

In the wake of the Third Maratha War the British acquired Saugor, where a mint had been in operation for some 35 years. Its rupees had been extensively copied by private minting operations in the surrounding towns and, in an attempt to mitigate this, Thomas Herbert Maddock (1792-1870), who was on the Governor-General’s staff, instructed the darogah to insert the word ‘Saugor’ in crude script and the date 1819 on the dies. The following year the Bengal government confirmed the plan to build a new mint but, with Lt (later Major, later Col.) Duncan Presgrave in charge, machinery on order and the mint building to be made ready, some of the machinery was diverted to Benares and it was not until 1824, and the closure of the Farrukhabad mint, that Presgrave was able to finally oversee the installation of its equipment at Saugor. Production started in 1825 and, despite instructions from various authorities to close the mint in 1828, 1831 and 1833, it remained open until late 1835

Three specimens are now known, all from the same reverse die. This is not the Stevens plate coin, which is in the Lingen collection