I have these two 5 Rupee coins from India. Both dated 2009, they seem to be the same, but looking at the lions pillar, it is clear that they are different.
Does anyone know if they are just variants of the same coin or if they have two different KM numbers. One KM number should be KM373, and the other?
I received the following answer from a contact in India. I did not know that the Indian coins have mint marks. Interesting.
Both the coins are KM#373.
Coin on left is from Mumbai (Bombay) mint. You can see the mint mark (diamond shape) under the date.
Coin on left is from Kolkata (Calcutta) mint. You cannot see the mint mark, because this mint does not use any mark.
Differences in the coins is because, every Mint makes and uses its own die, and probable lack of quality control in the production process.
The fonts on your right coin as well as their distances from the edge are not explained by differences in mints. Please check the security edge on the coins - the one on the right probably has a very crude edge as compared to one on the left. Also please compare the weights and magnetic properties if you could and let us know. Thanks for posting - it makes for an interesting topic.
Here are some lion varieties in 2 rupee coins for Republic India provided by Ashish Parui
In an earlier thread (this one, start reading from androl's post), I dropped a similar issue for this coin. I have three items of it, and not two are the same. On one of them, the number "5" is considerably larger than on the other two. The other two are different with respect to the central lion of the Ashoka column: on one coin it has pointed ears, on the other it doesn't.
On the scans, I cut out the two "5"-s and pasted them next to eachother to show the difference in size. For the obverse, I encircled the lions' heads: two have a block-head, one has ears!
The abundance of variation reduces my enthusiasm to collect Indian coins: I collect by type and variety, but in this way an India collection is almost impossible to complete. Does anyone else feel the same about this?
I fully agree with you ArnoV, I collect India coins by type (KM) only, varieties seem almost infinite. But I do know of people who collect by variety and there are lists that track types and varieties by each issue - to each his own
Just noticed another difference: the typeface of the coin of the right is different. The Latin letters have pointed serifs, while on the coins on the left the serifs are squared.
Of course I fully agree with Philip that collecting should be fun in the first place.
Indian coins have the most variants of any country (very light quality control) and they are very fun to collect, but they start to become too expensive, since they are horded for their alloys! The alloy is worth more than the nominal value of the coin, so a lot simply disappears and are converted into anything else than coins. Formula 1 blocks (motors) maybe????
The following documentation I copied from an internet site in 2011 and had as a link, but lucky enough I also copied the contents into a word document.
I hope the author will not be upset to find it here, since the Indian mint marks are often ignored, and it's good to have the documented for everyone to see.
When struggeling with a Victoria silver rupee, I found the page which seemed to me to be quite interesting for Indian coins collectors ! http://britishcoins.indian-coins.com/
It has several sister pages for British India, Republic and some states.
May help.
Cheers,
André
Quand l'Histoire et la Géographie se croisent sur nos pièces de monnaie ...
Well that's unfortunate. I run on Linux and hence don't have that type of trouble.
If needed, mp me with an email address and I can save a few pages as pdf.
For example the Mint Marks page http://republiccoins.indian-coins.com/mintmarks.html
Cheers,
André
Quand l'Histoire et la Géographie se croisent sur nos pièces de monnaie ...
Mcafee n'a pas protesté pour ce lien. Maintenant je sais aussi, d'où j'avais les images.... donc il faut que j'incorpore ce lien dans ma documentation, merci
