KOCHI: Everyone has hobbies like collecting stamps, painting or accumulating antiques but for Jee Francis Therattil, his passion is compiling rare coins, particularly those that were in circulation in Kerala more than 2000 years ago. Whether it is a unique coin issued by Venad or a Roman coin which came via trade to Muziris, Jee Francis’s coin collection includes every possible coin.
More than 30 years ago, Jee discovered coins from the freshly disturbed soil after a rain. It turned out to be copper coins which were prevalent in that region.From then onward he started collecting coins and happens to be the third generation in his family to do so.It all began when his late grandfather Therattil Kurien George who was a headmaster at CMS School in Thrissur observed some coins amongst stones and began studying them.
Afterward, his late father Therattil George Francis, a government employee was curious enough to possess those coins. “My father had a small container in which he would collect coins. This provoked my curiosity. He always used to allow me to go through the collection which were usually wrapped in colour paper,” Jee says.“My father started procuring more coins whenever he got the opportunity to do so. Jewellers were the source as people would take old silver and gold coins to jewellers to make jewellery. The source of copper coins was generally the scrap dealers,” said Jee Francis, who is currently working in Dubai. Since pre-degree, Jee started procuring coins on his own. “Sometimes I received multiple coins of the same variety. I used to keep the best and exchange the others for coins that I didn’t have. Overtime I made contacts.
Wherever I go, I used to inquire about the availability of old coins. People who weren’t collectors informed me about collectors. This way I was fortunate enough to collect a lot of ancient coins that once prevailed locally,” says Jee. Some of the coins were identifiable from the script and the emblems on it. Jee was curious to know the issuer of those coins. Books on the respective topic weren’t available. By now,he was anxious enough to study history and epigraphy in order to identify coins. He visited libraries, museums, archaeology department offices, historians, and epigraphists to know more about the rulers who might have issued these coins.
The lack of proper information regarding the coinage of Kerala led him to write a book on that topic. “While writing the introduction in the book, I faced a lot of difficulties in describing the developmental stage and how the early coins came to Kerala. In order to explain further, I had to write a book on how coinage started in India. The title was ‘ The Dawn of Indian Coinage’,” he adds. He had exhibited his coin collection at Kanakakkunnu Palace in 1996 and University College in 1997 during the Tourism Week, and recently during the fifth anniversary of Heritage Walk, Thiruvananthapuram.