Gadhaiya Paisa Chulukyas Of Gujarat

Very nice coin!

Your coin is struck on a thick dumpy flan and the portrait doesn't have an eyeball, which is usually attributed to the Vaghelas, 1244-1304 AD. Yours however, has some remarkable features:

- The lips are a C shape - they are usually dots or dashes - never joined.

- The bottom portion of the front ribbon (the backwards S shape at the bottom of the coin is usually in front of the lips, not beneath.

- The top portion of the front ribbon (three horizontal lines) is usually to the right of the bottom portion, not next to the nose.

- These are usually very debased; yours appears to be good silver.

This is a very good grab! Where did you find it?

This series has become very popular since Finn's excellent thread. Very nice example.

Apologies for the delay, been a bit under the weather.

Attributing these coins is tricky; there are a couple inscribed types that can be assigned to a particular ruler, but otherwise they can't be assigned with certainty to any ruler, kingdom, or even century. The attribution to the Vaghelas is usually made because the eyeless type is very common, very highly debased, and doesn't show a whole lot of stylistic drift before it abruptly stops. That of course assumes that the Chaulukyas made the much more varied and common "standard" Gadhaiya coins during their centuries in power. A member of another forum was kind enough to give me some scans of Deyell's chapter on the coins... he argued that based on a 14th century numismatic treatise written under the Delhi Sultan's mint master, most types of Gadhaiya Paisa ought to be attributable. Maheshwari, however, doesn't think attribution is possible.

As for the coin, any Gadhaiya with unorthodox or misplaced design elements is quite unusual--the design elements were actually quite tightly controlled. The closest I have in my collection is somewhat similar is of a slightly different fabric and portrait style, and has an open circle instead of a C. I'll dig the photo up from my photobucket and re-post it here for comparison. I paid about $20 for that one from Lanz, so I think your price was about right, although regular Vaghela-type gadhaiya can be quite cheap; I've won multiples on a minimum 99 cent bid on ebay.

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