Sale: Triton IX, Lot: 1679. Estimate $400.  Closing Date: Monday, 9 January 2006.  Sold For $525. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

INDIA. Mughal Empire. Jalal al-Din Akbar.1556-1605. AV Mohur (10.81 g, 3h). Agra mint. Dated AH 976 (1568/9 AD). Kalima within quatrefoil with twined corners; additional quatrefoil between lines / Poetical couplet in three lines; AH date, mint epithet - "dar al-Khalifat" below. Wright 67; Hull 1207; BMC 40; KM 106.1. Good VF. ($400)

When Akbar succeded his father Hamayun in 1556, the nascent Mughal empire had shrunk to the region of Kabul and Sind. The 14-year old Akbar, seconded by a staff of eminently able generals, embarked on a campaign of re-conquest that enveloped most of northern India over the next three decades, and laid the foundations of one of history's grandest empires. Akbar brought into his court men of all races and creeds, Persian, Turkish and Indian, Muslim and Hindu, and established a well-grounded government for the rule of India. The wealth of the country was immense; it has been estimated that the annual revenue of the state at the height of the empire amounted to some 10 crores, or about 100,000,000 rupees. The silver and gold pouring into the Treasury financed the armies that extended the Mughal realm, erected grandiose monuments in the showcase cities of the emperor, paid for munificent works of art and literature in the imperial court, and also bankrolled one of the most corrupt and profligate regimes ever seen. Akbar set the foundations for India's destiny, good and bad, for the next 250 years.