Sale: Triton IX, Lot: 1678. Estimate $300.  Closing Date: Monday, 9 January 2006.  Sold For $190. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

INDIA, Mughal Empire. Nasir-al-Din Muhammad Humayun. 1530-1556. AR Mitqal (4.73 g, 3h). Agra mint. Kalima, with names of the four Companions around / "Muhammad Humayan Ghazi"; mint in margin. Wright -; Hull 1173; BMC -; KM -. Good VF, sharp legends. ($300)

Humayan's father, Zahir-al-Din Babar, was descended from Timur on his father's side, and Chingiz Khan on his mother's (hence the reference to Mongol, which was transformed into Mughal). Babar's clan held a fief in Turkmen Ferghana as part of the Timurid Persian empire, but Babar's ambitions extended further. He attacked and captured Kabul in 1504, and then made plans to take on the Delhi sultans who dominated nothern 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 Humayan had been forced to retreat back to the homeland of his clan. By the 1550's Humayan 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 Humayan's coinage is either struck at Lahore or is without mintname; this rare silver mitqal was struck at Agra before that city was lost to him.