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Kinda cool mid-century India just arrived from Heritage

WeissWeiss Posts: 9,934 ✭✭✭✭✭
edited March 24, 2023 6:31PM in World & Ancient Coins Forum

A gold "tola" biscuit or wafer bullion piece from Calcutta circa 1950. The tola is a traditional Indian and Southeast Asian measure of weight, and weighs 11.3398038 grams or exactly 3/8 troy ounce.

Many firms made these tolas in this period of time in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Singapore. It's clear they took pride in their designs--they are interesting and attractive. The obverse of this piece was what caught my eye. But the reverses all have a neat mid-century aesthetic that I really like, too.

This firm was caught red-handed receiving smuggled gold, melting it, and turning it into these "laundered" tolas.

Sham Lal Sen Private gold Tola ND (c. 1950) MS64 NGC, KMX-Unl., Fr-1612. AGW 0.3730 oz. A highly lustrous and sharply struck private tola issue, featuring an attractive obverse design that illustrates a leftward running deer with rising sun over mountains in the background. Seldom seen as a type. AGW 0.3730 oz.

We are like children who look at print and see a serpent in the last letter but one, and a sword in the last.
--Severian the Lame

Comments

  • SaorAlbaSaorAlba Posts: 7,466 ✭✭✭✭✭

    They are one of those little overlooked areas of collecting, usually when I have seen those they are sold for slightly less than melt and nobody wants to deal with them because outside of India nobody knows anything about them. I collect USSR gold medals, similarly until recently they were overlooked in the west because nobody really knew much about them - they were sold only to westerners and the westerners didn't buy many of them because the prices were high. In the secondary market they usually sold for less than spot as just scrap gold. Now Russians want them so they are all being bought up and taken back to Russia.

    In memory of my kitty Seryozha 14.2.1996 ~ 13.9.2016 and Shadow 3.4.2015 - 16.4.21
  • WeissWeiss Posts: 9,934 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Interesting perspective, @SaorAlba. I researched past auctions and saw pretty stable prices well above spot. That said, I was able to pick this one up for not only less than the Heritage estimate, but actually less than melt (not including the premium).

    An NGC MS63 sold for nearly twice what I paid for this one just one year ago.

    But the best part is that I don't trigger my box of 20 rules with this piece: it's just bullion :D

    We are like children who look at print and see a serpent in the last letter but one, and a sword in the last.
    --Severian the Lame
  • Namvet69Namvet69 Posts: 8,620 ✭✭✭✭✭

    I kinda like the obv. Thanks. Peace Roy

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  • ashelandasheland Posts: 22,612 ✭✭✭✭✭

    That's really cool, Weiss! Nice pick up!

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