Sale: Triton IX, Lot: 1775. Estimate $1500.  Closing Date: Monday, 9 January 2006.  Sold For $1100. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

INDIA, Mughal Empire. Shah Alam II. 759-1806. AV Mohur (10.77 g, 12h). Shahjahanabad mint. Dated AH 1203; RY 31 (1788/9 AD). "Struck money like the Shaib-i-qiran, by the help of God, defender of the faith of Muhammad, Shah Alam Padishah"; parasol symbol / Legend with regnal year and mint epithet - "dar al-Khalifat" above; cross symbol. Cf. Wright 2280; Hull 2249; cf. BMC 1094; KM 720. EF, rough die work, with die cracks. ($1500)

The year 1788 (AH 1202/3) was a chaotic time for the foundering Mughal empire. Shah Alam II, never very sÉcure on his throne, was deposed in July by a Rohilla bandit king, Ghulam Qadir Khan. The emperor was blinded and sent into exile. He was rescued by one of the most remarkable personalities in Indian history, the Begum Samru. She first came to notice as a dancing girl who attracted the eye of a European adventurer, Walter Reinhardt Somers, who had been granted a vast fief at Sardhana for his services to the Mughal emperor. When he died in 1778, his wife, the former entertainer and now the Begum, accepted responsibility for governing his estates, establishing one of the most splendid courts in princely India. When Shah Alam was deposed, the Begum acknowledged her role as vassal to the emperor, and raised a Maratha army to overthrow the usurper. Shah Alam was restored in March 1789, and Begum Samru was awarded the title of Zebu-n-nisa.

The question of whether the rare AH 1203 mohurs can be attributed to one of the contending forces is a vexing one. As seen in the present specimens, there are two distinct varieties for that year. The one, of rather crude workmanship, has subsidiary symbols of a trident and a cross by the date. The trident was a common symbol on Maratha coins, and the Begum had converted to Catholicism in 1781 (although it should be noted that cross symbols appear on numerous Mughal coins, with no apparent connection with Christianity). The second type is of much higher quality workmanship, although the date is usually found blundered. This issue has a subsidiary mark worked into the mint signature, the letter "ain", or perhaps "ghain". Is this possibly an allusion to Ghulam Qadir? We thus have two distinct types of mohurs which could be attributed to loyalist and rebel forces contending for the Mughal throne.