I haven't been actively collecting fanams as much, but I periodically keep my eyes out for better types. I saw a bunch of these listed all at once, so I snagged one for a very reasonable deal.
India, Kingdom of Mysore
Krishnaraja Wodeyar III
1799-1868
Gold fanam, 6mm 0.40g
Obv: Narasimha, the lion-faced avatar of Vishnu
Rev: Poorly executed legend "Sri Kamthi Rava"
Krishnaraja was installed by the British as a puppet ruler after the British defeated and killed the pro-French/anti-colonial Tipu Sultan at the end of the Fourth Anglo-Mysore war. At the tender age of just six, the British correctly assumed he would be an easily pliable puppet ruler, critical to their colonial interests, as Mysore was among the richest countries in the world at the turn of the 19th century. Krishnaraja grew up under close British supervision, exercising very little real authority. Citing corruption and mismanagement by the British representatives in Mysore, Krishnaraja attempted to assert greater autonomy at the end of the 1820s, but was put down and lost most of his actual power when the British began to administer Mysore directly in 1831. Krishnaraja then turned his attention to the arts and humanities, and the culture of Mysore flourished.
For those unfamiliar, the fanam was a denomination of gold coin invented in southern India in the middle ages to provide a useful middle denomination between the copper and gold coinages, since silver was not readily available for coinage. Typically, a farm-hand would need 4-6 fanams a week to live in dire poverty and not starve to death. Since they were so hard to handle, large payments in fanams required a special counting board; the coins poured in and shook into little holes on the board. The fanam fell out of popularity in the mid 1800s after the near total takeover of India by the East India Company; they facilitated the flow of precious metals and the states of the South began minting more easily handled silver coins.
But how small are these, exactly?
Posted 03/21/2018 11:58 am
