ORIENTAL NUMISMATIC SOCIETY

ORIENTAL NUMISMATIC SOCIETY

Secretary General Regional Secretaries Mr. - - Broome General Section: Mr. G. P. Hennequin Newsletter Editor Europe: Dr. M. B. Mitchiner

UK, and Eire: Mr. K. W. Wiggins Annual Subscription £5-00; 11.81. 25-00; FF. 65-00; 9-00 dollars North America: Dr. Craig Burns Newsletter number 88 February 1984 Members news

Mr. Vic. Brown, our treasurer, has a copy of J. Allan, Catalogue of the coins of Ancient India in the British

Museum (1936). Will anyone interested in acquiring it please contact him. Mr…. is studying the gold coins of

Egypt and would like details of any 50 and 100 piastre coins dated AH 1293 in members’ collections. We

reget to announce the recent deaths of Mr…. in Amsterdam and of Prof…. whose scholarly work on

the Scythian period will be known to many of our members.

ONS meetings The Northeastern USA Chapter is proving itself a hive of activity. Their next meeting (March 10th) will

include a talk by Dr. Martha L. Carter on ‘A reconstruction of Kushano-sasanian history through numismatics’.

For information about forthcoming activities please contact the secretary, William B. Warden jr., at PO Box

356, New Hope, PA 18938. A meeting, on the eastern side of the Atlantic, was held at Cologne in November

and attended by members from Germany, the Netherlands and England. Papers included ‘Rare acquisitions

from Nepal’, ‘Symbols on coins of Tibet and Nepal’, ‘Trilingual coins with inscriptions in Brahmi, Greek and

Pehlvi’ and ‘Rare Moghul coins’. A further meeting has been arranged for the coming autumn - Hotel Mondial,

Cologne, 10-30 am, Saturday 17th November 1984. Will anyone interested please contact Dr. van der Wiel

for details in due course. The next London meeting of the ONS will be at 2-30 pm on Saturday March 31st. at 28 Little Russel Street, London W 1. Index of items of interest from the ONS newsletters, 1976 - 1983 (concluded)

MACASSAR (Celebes): early coinage of the Sultans MALDIVE ISLANDS: last native coinage of MARATHAS OF TANJORE:: gold fanams struck by MROHAUNG DYNASTY (Arakan): four new coins MROHAUNG DYNASTY (Arakan): Chittagong coins MROHAUNG DYNASTY (Arakan): trilingual coins MUGHAL: gold and silver coins of Kashmir MUGHAL: coins of Qandahar in the Deccan MUHAMMAD III BIN TUGHLAQ: 14th century mule MUKDEN (China): 20 and 10 cash coins of 1922 MUMINABAD–BINDRABAN: coins struck at MUSEUMS: coin collections in MYSORE: coins countermarked GB MYSORE: a 25 cash coin of Krishna Raja Wodeyar Feb. Dec. Feb. Apr. Jun. Oct. Aug. Feb. Apr. Dec. Jun. Apr. Apr. Feb. NARWAR (Gwalior state): an unpublished rupee of NEPAL: Kathmandu mint tokens

OTTOMAN: overstrikes on European crowns OTTOMAN: large copper coins OTTOMAN: zinc coins OTTOMAN: tokens

PACKSADDLE SYCEE: issued circa 1912 - 1933 PEGU: lead coins PLANTATION TOKENS: Indonesian hoard of PONDICHERRY: double rupees struck at

PUNCH MARKED: single punch marked copper coins of Ancient India

PYU: coins and modern fantasies PYU: some new coins QANDAHAR: Deccan mint of the Mughals QUNDUZ: Timurid copper coins. of

RAS BAB AL MANDAB: countermarked coins of Shaykh Sa’id REWAH: Bushby Sahib REWAH: Bushby Sahib

SAMBAK (NW. Borneo): coin of SAMBAK (NW. Borneo): coin of SATAVAHANA: Sri - Sata coins SEISTAN: Abbasid - Sassanian coinage of SHAYKH SA’ID: Ras bab al Mandab; coins of, circa 1890 SHOLAPUR: Mughal rupee of Aurangzeb SIKKIM: forgeries of the paisa SULTANS OF DELHI: 14th century mule of Mohammed III SWAT: early medieval coins from

TANJORE: Marathas - gold fanams struck by TAXILA: two interesting overstruck coins TIBET: a Sino - Tibetan countermark TONK STATE: new type of copper coin TOWEELAHS: a short note on TRIPURA: an unpublished Muslim rupee

WHAT IS IT? WHAT IS IT? WORLD OF ISLAM FESTIVAL 1976: colloquium on Islamic Numismatics

Notes on coins of particular interest and short articles for newsletters are always welcome.

Single Punch Marked Coppers of Ancient Northern India Oct. Oct. Dec. Aug. Oct. Oct. Oct. Feb. Aug. Oct. Dec. Jun. Jun. Feb. Dec. Aug. Feb. Apr. Dec. Feb. Oct. Aug. Aug. Jun. Jun. Apr. Jun. Feb. Dec. Feb. Aug. Oct. Dec. Apr. Jun. Apr. 10/9

Details of Mr. Robert Tye’s coins photographed in the previous newsletter should be amended as follows:

(all have blank rev.) top left: Mathura lion type: Lion walking left, standard in front (5.3 gm) top right: 2 Kausambi elephant type: Elephant with tusks slightly raised (4.0 gm) low left: 3 Ujjain bull type: Bull left with symbol in front (4.1 gm) low right:4 Uncertain provenance, Delhi area: Elephant left with tusks lowered (1.4 gm)

• Takekawa, Gold and Silver Japanese coins, Paris 1981 review by Joe Cribb

£50 - 00, A4 size, Lii + 198 pages, illustrations - line drawings and photographs in text - in English, French and Japanese.

In a series so short of available western language reference books, the appearance of this new work on

Japanese coins by H. Takekawa ought to have been welcomed with enthusiasm. Unfortunately a closer

examination of it has deflated any excitement the new of publication created.

Gold and Silver Japanese Coins is a printed copy of a mid-nineteenth century manuscript titled Kingin

Zuroku (Pictorial Record of Gold and Silver) by Hisanori Takekawa, an otherwise unknown Japanese. The

publication of this manuscript has been edited by M. Bon who has arranged its translation into French and

English and has added to it introductions, appendices and indexes. He has also fundamentally re-ordered the

text of the original manuscript and added to it some photographic illustrations of Japanese silver in his own collection.

The misfortune is that Bon failed to realise that Takekawa’s manuscript was a very poor copy of a work of the same title by Morishige Kondo published in Japan c. 1810 (Coole J. 212). Kondo’s book, still the

standard reference work on 16 - 18th century Japanese Provincial gold and silver coins, is beautifully

illustrated with tinted wood block engravings of Japanese gold and silver coins and descriptions and

discussions of them written in Kondo’s own elegant calligraphy. Takekawa’s copy is badly drawn and written

and misses out large parts of the original. It is of little use, even as a ‘poor man’s’ substitute for Kondo’s

work, and Bon’s re-arrangement of the manuscript has robbed it of the few merits it had. On top of this

misfortune the appendices and indexes added by Bon are of very limited use to either the collector or student

of Japanese coins. Furthermore the photographs he included are all of recent forgeries (see J. Cribb, Some

Japanese Forgeries in Bulletin on Counterfeits, vol. 8 no. 1/2, p. 26 - 38, London 1983 - offprints of this are

available free to ONS members from the author, c/o British Museum: please include postage with request).

It is a tragedy that so much work by Bon and his collaborators has been spent on a manuscript of such

little value or interest. Those interested in Japanese coins will still have to rely on N. G. Munro’s ‘Coins of Japan’ or N. Jacobs and C. C. Vermeule’s ‘Japanese coinage’; both of which have fortunately been recently reprinted.

The Indian Institute of Research in Numismatic Studies by K. W. Wiggins A significant event in Indian Numismatics occurred on Sunday, 8th. January 1984 at Anjaneri in the Nasik district of Maharashtra when the recently completed Indian Institute of Research in Numismatic studies was

inaugurated with due ceremony in the presence of an audience of over 300 persons. The Proceedings started at

11-30 am with opening addresses by Dr. P. L. Gupta, the Director of the Institute, Mr. Karl Khandalavala, an

eminent Indian antiquary, Dr. D. W. MacDowall, a well known English numismatist and Mr. K. K. Maheshwari,

the Bombay businessman by whose foresight and generosity the Institute was established. The speakers traced

the history of numismatics in India from the 19th century and stressed that with the greater interest now

being taken in numismatics as a source for historical data the Institute would prove invaluable.

A general tour of the Institute, which is in a rural setting, was made after the opening ceremony and the visitors were agreeably surprised to find an ultra modern building beautifully equipped with furniture and fittings of the highest quality. The Institute already holds a considerable library and an extensive system of filing cabinets housing the cards containing photographs and data on individual Indian and allied coins. Over 50,000 photographs have already been acquired. There are also offices, a lecture room, and a rest room. It is

proposed to equip a laboratory, a photographic department and a small museum. A further building under construction in the grounds of the Institute will provide accomodation for staff and visiting students.

The following two days were taken up by a seminar presided over by Dr. Gupta. Many interesting papers

were presented by numismatists from India, Europe and America. A number of ONS members were present. As well as… From the United Kingdom were… ONS members from India included….

The establishment of the Institute is a most important achievement for Indian numismatics. Its future

depends largely on the professionalism and enthusiasm of the Director and his staff and on the quality and scholarship of the material in the research journal and other publications which will be produced in the future. This Institute clearly deserves the recognition and support of all students of Indian coinage. The Institute will always welcome photographs and particulars of important coins for their archives and donations of books or articles on Indian and related coins. The administration office of the Institute is at 507 Raheja Centre, 214 Nariman Point, Bombay 400 021. Any members visiting India in the future should include the Institute in their itinerary. They can be assured of a warm welcome from Dr. Gupta and his staff and with the wealth of material at the Institute any visit should be interesting and productive.