Thursday, March 31, 2011

Indian coin set circa 1950s

Half anna, 1950
half anna 1950 bull
One anna , 1950

india one anna 1950
2 anna, 1950

india 2 anna 1955
1/4 rupee, 1955


india 1/4 rupee 1955Written at top: char ana meaning four annas

1/2 rupee, 1955

half rupee 1955
1 rupee, 1950

1 rupee 1950
1 rupee, 1954

1 rupee 1954When India became a republic in 1950, the anna series was adopted for coinage purposes. 1 rupee consisted of 16 annas. As you can see clearly in this series, the denomination keeps on decreasing by a factor of two: one rupee, half rupee, quarter rupee(4 annas), two annas, one anna and half anna. All the fractions were consistently minted , with the one anna and two anna coins of 1955 coming under the category of low mintage coins; and are therefore rare and also having very high value. This design of one rupee was minted only in 1950 and1954, and that too only in the Bombay mint. After that one rupee coin came out only in 1962. The anna series was discontinued in 1955 and it was replaced by the naya paisa series in 1957. The designers had experimented with a one rupee coin reading "sau naye paise" meaning 100 new paise in 1960. Only 3 such pieces are known to have been minted and 1 such coin recently sold at an auction for 2.2 lakh rupees.

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