HYDERABAD: Two rare Mughal era gold coins, which were once in possession of an important personality in the Nizam’s administration during the pre-Independence period, were recently auctioned for Rs 43.5 lakh in Australia. The square gold coins, weighing around 14 grams each and minted in Lahore in 1607 (1017 AH), were auctioned on July 30 by Australia-based Noble Numismatics Pty Ltd. The description of coins in the catalogue available on its website reads, “A heavy special 25 per cent overweight presentation type issue from the early part of his (Jahangir’s) reign.”
“The issue has poetic couplet on the reverse (in Persian). It reads: He made the face of money to shine with hues of sun and moon”, together with mint formula zarb Lahore, it adds.
Although the auction description says that the coins were held by a ‘Taraporevala who was the financial advisor to the Nizam’, historians feel that the description is wrong and that it was instead in possession of Captain B S Taraporevala of the Nizam’s Army.
There was indeed a Taraporevala — Khan Bahadur C B Taraporevala, in the Nizam’s administration who was a financial advisor or accountant to the last Nizam. “Accountant Taraporevala had nothing to do with the coins. It is Capt Taraporevala who had one of the biggest coin collections in the country,” Mohammad Safiullah of the Deccan Heritage Trust said. Continued on P5
Safiullah said that Taraporevala had a collection of around 1,000 coins, most of which were taken over by the National Museum in Delhi. “However, some like the ones auctioned now, may have found its way to foreign shores through individual collectors,” he added.
Safiullah says that in the 1940s, the country’s museums used to sell their surplus gold coins in a very reasonably range -- between Rs 30 to Rs 40. “In fact in the mid-80s, the government museum in Lucknow used to sell bronze, silver, and gold coins based on the prevailing rates. However, now museums are not allowed to sell anything,” he added.
How the coins may have reached foreign shores is not conclusively known, there is a long persisting issue of the smuggling of Mughal gold coins. Recently reports said that the Central Bureau of Investigation has apparently reopened the case of missing Mughal gold coins which were allegedly smuggled out of the country in the 1970s.