INDIA, Mughal Empire. Nur al-Din Muhammad Jahangir. AH 1014-1037 / AD 1605-1627. AV Heavy Mohur – Tanka (23mm, 21.85 g, 9h). Kanbayat mint. Dually dated AH 1027 and RY 12 (December, AD 1618). EF.

Triton XXVI
Lot: 1067. Estimated: $ 500 000

World, Coin-in-Hand Video, Gold

Sold For $ 350 000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Go to Live

INDIA, Mughal Empire. Nur al-Din Muhammad Jahangir. AH 1014-1037 / AD 1605-1627. AV Heavy Mohur – Tanka (23mm, 21.85 g, 9h). Kanbayat mint. Dually dated AH 1027 and RY 12 (December, AD 1618). sikka/Jahangir/shahi (coin of Jahangir Shah); 1027 (date) below / zarb/Kanbayat/sanat/12/jalus (struck Kanbayat year 12 of the accession). Liddle –; BM –; IMC (Wright) –; Hull –; KM –; Zeno 284885 = S. Goron and R. Babar, “Jahangir’s Gold Tanka of Cambay,” ONS Newsletter 175 (Spring 2003), p. 18 and illustration (this coin). Lightly toned, deposits, light marks. EF. Of the highest rarity, apparently the only published specimen.

When S.H. Hodivala published his Historical Studies in Mughal Numismatics in 1923, he included an article entitled “Jahangir’s Cambay Tankas.” Citing a passage of the Mughal emperor’s autobiography, Tuzuk-e Jahangiri, Hodivala stated that, a few months prior to the introduction of his celebrated Zodiac coinage, Jahangir, while encamped at Kanbayat (Cambay), ordered the minting of special silver and gold coins (which were called tankas). In the translation of the Tuzuk-e Jahangiri by Rogers and Beveridge (London, 1909, pp. 417-8), the emperor Jahangir describes in his own words how he came to create these beautiful and impressive tankas: At this time an order was given that tankas of gold and silver should be coined at twice the weight of ordinary mohurs and rupees. The legend on the gold coin was on one side the words ‘Jahangir-shahi, 1027’ and on the reverse ’Struck in Cambay in the 12th year of the reign.’ The legend for silver coins was on one side ‘Sikka, Jahangir-shahi, 1027’; round it this hemistich, ‘King Jahangir of the conquering ray struck this’; and on the reverse, ‘Coined at Cambay in the 12th year of the reign,’ with this second hemistich round it: ‘When after the conquest of the Deccan he came to Gujarat from Mandu.’ In no reign except mine have tankas been coined except of copper; the gold and silver tankas are my invention. I ordered it to be called the Jahangiri coinage.

It has been suggested that the splendid calligraphy on this coin has strong similarities with the beautiful nasta’liq script of the celebrated calligrapher ‘Abd al-Rahim al-Heravi. Known as ’Anbarin-Qalam, ‘The Pen of Amber’, a title which may have been bestowed on him by Jahangir himself, dated manuscripts indicate that ‘Abd al-Rahim was active at the Mughal court for at least thirty years, spanning the period between AH 1005-1037. Contemporary sources confirm that calligraphers at the Mughal court were often skilled in other arts, including painting, gilding and engraving.

At the time that Hodivala published his findings, no gold tankas had been discovered. This specimen is the first and only recorded example of a gold tanka of this type, published and illustrated by S. Goron and R. Babar, in the ONS Newsletter 175 (Spring 2003). No extant silver tankas of the type described in the Tuzuk-e Jahangiri are known, but Jahangir’s own description of their legends confirms that these double-weight gold and silver coins were struck following his military operations in the Deccan.

The final winners of all Triton XXVI lots will be determined at the live public sale that will be held on 10-11 January 2023.

Triton XXVI – Session Four – Lots 991-1315 will be held Wednesday afternoon, 11 January 2023 beginning at 2:00 PM ET.

Winning bids are subject to a 22.5% buyer's fee for bids placed on this website and 25% for all others.

We recognize that our users may have various Internet Browsers and Operating Systems. We like our visitors to have the best possible experience when using our bidding platform. However, we do recognize that it is impossible to develop applications that work identically, efficiently and effectively on all web browsers. The CNG bidding platform supports the latest stable major version and stable previous version of Chrome and Firefox.