333, Lot: 445. Estimate $150. Sold for $150. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

INDIA, Mughal Empire. Nasir al-Din Muhammad Humayun. 1530-1540 and 1555-1556. AR Mitqal (27mm, 4.73 g, 6h). Agra mint. Wright –; Hull 1173. Good VF, typical weakness around the periphery.

Humayun’s father, Zahir-al-Din Babar, was descended from Timur on his father’s side and Chingiz Khan on his mother’s. Babar's clan held a fief in Turkmen Ferghana as part of the Timurid Persian Empire, but his ambitions extended further. He attacked and captured Kabul in 1504, afterwards making plans to take on the Delhi sultans who dominated northern India. In 1526, he defeated the Lodi sultan Ibrahim at Panipat, the bloody battleground where many contests for control of India were decided, and declared himself sultan. Babar had overextended his resources, however, and within a few years of his death in 1530 Humayun had been forced to retreat back to the homeland of his clan. By the 1550s, Humayun had rebuilt the Mughal fortunes to the point where he felt strong enough to go on the offensive again, but in a freak accident in 1556 he fell down a flight of stairs and broke his neck. It would remain for his young son Akbar to take the weapon he had forged and hurl it at India. Most of Humayun's coinage is either struck at Lahore or is without a mint signature. This mitqal was struck at Agra before that city was lost to him.