Star Pagoda

Bobby's been too busy to keep this area maintained; as long as people don't go overboard with it, I guess folks are welcome to post their own "coins of the week".

The "pagoda" denomination was first struck in the middle ages by the Hindu states on the southernmost tip of India, outside the influence of the Mughal Empire and the mohur standard in place there. The denomination was continued by the French, Dutch and British traders who arrived in Southern India and set up trading colonies and outposts in various locations along the coast. The British "star" pagoda was the largest and heaviest, and therefore the most highly prized.

In the "Proclamation" of New South Wales Governor King in 1800, the "pagoda" was tariffed at 8 shillings; in India, this coin was usually tariffed at seven shillings. This brings it into line with the other revaluations in the Proclamation: gold coins had their values increased by 1 shilling, silver coins had their values increased by 1 penny, copper coins had their face value doubled.

As an aside, the pagoda was subdivided into 42 fanams. As the pagoda itself is a fairly small coin (at 3.4 grams), a gold fanam, weighing just 0.08 grams, would be a very small coin indeed; many new collectors are astonished to hear that such tiny coins were actually struck my many of the native states in southern India. Not only that, but some states struck half-fanams. The mediaeval Vijayanagar Kingdom even struck 1/10th fanam coins, though their fanams were somewhat heavier than British-period ones.