SA Volunteers Workshop I: Indian Coinage by Shubhangi Singh

One of the first things we'd been hearing about SA Volunteers, when we enrolled, was the Volunteers'
 Workshop and most of us could hardly wait. By the time the Workshop became a reality, we had already finished our first week of assignments and had started interacting briefly with each other on WhatsApp Task Forums and Facebook. 

A Standard SA Observation Sheet on Coins

A few days before the workshop,  the we started receiving picture messages on WhatsApp, showing us the coins we would be studying and asking us to bring along any old ones we might have at home,  for the purpose of study. 

Those of us who were bringing coins were also asked to make a preliminary observation sheet such as this one, right here. Soon, a message was circulated on the Volunteer Workshop Kit, which was basically a list of odd items we were supposed to carry with us to the workshop. 

Finally, after a last minute venue change, the day for the first Speaking Archaeologically Workshop dawned for us. I was really excited to meet all the volunteers of Speaking Archaeologically and Shriya. So, there we were in a new café in town, called The Rumor Mill, and as always, I was late for the introduction session of the workshop, but somehow managed to pull a few strings to catch up quickly on what I had missed.

We were divided into three groups and each group had to study a given set of coins. Trust me, I had the most amazing people in my group!There were five volunteers in each group, who were given a set of coins,belonging to a particular ruler, to study.

Our Group of Amateur Numismatists: Athira Jamwal, Aditi Joshi,
Arjun Pushkarna, Anubhav and I.

My group had to study the British Indian Coins of King Edward VII  and  King George V  brought in by Shriya and fellow volunteers, Vidushi Chandel and Athira Jamwal.

The first step was to wash our hands properly and wear gloves as oil secretions and acids on our skin are supposed to be harmful for the coins. They can actually react chemically with the metal of the coined cause damage that might not show up for years. Another reason to wash our hands is that whatever is on our hand will be transformed to the surface of the coin dirt, sweat, food particles, and grease to name a few. These things can cause unwanted spots or worse, they could cause coins to begin to wear.

Then came the second step: to hold the coin and examine it well, preferably hold the coin between index finger and thumb. I had no idea that when you hold a coin there are a lot of things to look at, and there's a recommended sequence in which we need to examine the coin. 

Once the trays with our coins came in, our job was differentiating between the Obverse and the Reverse, which can be quite complicated, especially when the figures on the coins are not monarchical,  as was the case with a Sikh Missal coin Vidushi had brought in.

Also, there was the problem of the Gregorian equivalents of coins that were minted by Hindus or Sikhs, who followed the Indian Calendar  or the Vikram Samvat.

The next step added  to the complications: observing at the etchings on the coin. In all coins, old and new, motifs etched and engraved around the denomination are never meaningless! They could be ayats from the Holy Koran or religious figures, or national symbols and if you were a British monarch, they were probably a way to boast of all the kingdoms that collectively make up your empire! (Take a look at this silver One Rupee of George V, go on!)

 

Basically,  an etching could signify anything related to the issuing authority of a coin. 

For the last step the size, shape and metal of the coin,was observed.  The highlight of this was the ice-cube test for silver coins, that helped us discern the fake ones from the real ones. In fact, Shriya did this for us one by one by first asking us to tell the fake ones from the real ones by observations and then making us perform the ice-cube test. 

We also compared weights of the standard Quarter Anna Issues of Victoria, Edward VII, George V and George VI and it was surprising how the two World Wars changed the size and even the alloy component for the coins! In fact, during World War II, the copper pice was minted with a hole in the middle, just to save metal! 

The last bit was observing first issues of Pakistan and India post Independence and Partition. It's really amazing how much  something as commonplace as coins tell us about politics,  history and social identity,  when studied with relation to the events of the past.

"Each coin has a story to tell," was the end-note of the first half of the Workshop and for a good hour and a half, we were left to enjoy the eccentrically creative but truly scrumptious food at The Rumour Mill. What happened next, is a part of our next post, so stay tuned for more!