Coins In Lucknow Mus. Vol 01 [56 MB - IndianCoins.org

PrintedINDOPORTUGUESE COINS.THE history of the coinage for the Portuguese possessions in India,from the foundation of the Goa mint in 1510 by Afonso Dalboquerquedown to the present time, has been fully dealt with by Mr. J. Gei^onDa Cunha in his admirable " Contributions to the Study of Indo-"Portuguese Numismatics, l to which I would refer the reader who isinterested in the subject, and to which I am indebted for the descriptionof the coins.The present catalogue contains only a description of the coins, whichare contained in thecollection of the Madras Museum, and, to any onefamiliar with the history of the Indo -Portuguese coinage, it will be atonce evident that the collection is very deficient in the coins struckprior to the latter half of the last century, and my efforts to improveit in this respect have proved fruitless but this is not to;be wonderedat, for Mr. Da Cunha "says The : subject of the Portuguese coinagein India is involved in much obscurity. Money was first minted at Goain 1510 A.D., only 370 years ago but its ; history is more vague andundefined than that of either the Greek or Eoman coinage. The issueof coins by the viceroys, and often by the officers of the mint, withoutany intervention on the part of the viceroys or governors-general, wasconducted in the most unsystematic, not to say capricious, fashion. Thecoins not seldom bore impresses, effigies,and legends which had noconnection whatever with the reigning monarchs of the period whenthey were issued. Some of them were still minted long after a newcurrency with crowned or profile busts of kings was introduced. Again,some of these latter coins were struck years after the kings whose buststhey bore had ceased to live. These whimsical variations both in typesand in the standard of money are in themselves enough to cause nolittle confusion in the study of Indo-Portuguese numismatics. Butthese difficulties are increased tenfold by an absolute want of examplesof the early periods of the Portuguese rule in India, their place beingbut inefficiently supplied by some written reports and private memoirs.The coins of the XVIth, XVIIth, and XVIIIth centuries are not onlyscarce, but even the written documents relating to them are rare ordeficient."Bombay:at the Education Society's Press, Byculla, 1880.ABBBEVIATIONS.An. = Gold.Ae. Copper.Ar. =. Silver.13r. = Brass.Tg. = Tutoiwg.