I am fascinated by books written by long-ago explorers and I recently read the 1925 book
My Life as an Explorer by Sven Hedin.
Sven Hedin (1865-1952) was a Swedish explorer who made several trips to central Asia from around 1900 to the 1930's and wrote about them.
Most of his trips were funded by the Swedish Nobel oil company and the King of Sweden.
On his trips he had to deal with local money, mostly in gold or silver.
In Persia (now Iran):
I had changed all my funds into Persian kran, and at that time a kran was valued at a franc. The small silver coins were sewn in leather belts, which we wore around our waists. I had half the money, and Baki the other.
Persia (Iran) 5 Kran AH 1320 (AD 1902)
Silver, 36mm, 23.12gm
In Persia he met the Shah or King:
He (The Shah) often rode to the hunt with a large suite, not forgetting us. When the expedition passed through a village, the people always came out to gaze at Shahinshah, the "King of Kings". At such times, he would distribute gold coins among them.Now the peasants get cheap "challenge coins".
Sven visits Meshhed, Persia, the "City of Martyrs":
The third grave is that of Nadir Shah (1688-1747) who:
built pyramids of human heads on the mosque-roofs, and stamped on his coins, "O coin, announce to all the earth the reign of Nadir, the king who conquered the world".I can not find such a coin in standard catalogs, but did find one with the inscription "the coin has struck the name of the sultanate in the world, the rare one (Nadir) of Iranzamin, the world-seizing Emperor".
At a Bokhara coffee house Sven found that:
A small tart costs one pool where 64 pool = 20 copeck = 1 tenge; 20 tenge = 1 tillah = 4 roubles.Got that?
In Khotan in western China Sven bought some coins:
In Khotan, as also in the ancient village of Borasan, I bought antique relics from the natives. My collection numbered 523 articles, not counting some ancient manuscripts and a mass of coins. I also purchased some Christian gold coins, a cross, and a medal.He does not describe the "Christian gold coins" further.
While in Kashmir (British India) he prepares for one of his trips to Tibet by purchasing silver rupees, but they have to be the "right" kind:
I took with me 9,000 rupees of gold and 22,000 in silver. The latter all bore the likeness of Queen Victoria. Tibetans do not accept rupees that bear the King's portrait. The queen wears an imperial crown and a pearl necklace and looks like a Buddha. The King, no more is shown than his head, and that without a crown.
British India rupee 1900 - Queen Victoria, with imperial crown and pearl necklace
Silver, 30mm, 11.60gm
British India rupee 1905 - King Edward VII, without a crown to his head
Silver, 30mm, 11.56gm
Sven draws an encounter with a wild yak:
Posted 07/02/2018 9:55 pm
