British East India Company 1840 AR Rupee (Numista 24095)

BRITISH EAST INDIA COMPANY, 1600-1874
AR Rupee (30.5mm, 11.66g, 1h)
Dated 1840. Bombay or Calcutta mint
Obverse: VICTORIA QUEEN, bust of Queen Victoria left
Reverse: EAST INDIA COMPANY around wreath containing ONE RUPEE in two lines, Arabic translation below; 1840 along bottom
References: Numista 24095
Mintage: 398,554,000
In PCGS encapsulation, graded MS 62

Attractively toned. The British East India Company was founded in 1600 and over time grew to become the largest and most powerful corporation in the world, empowered to acquire territories, mint its own coinage, conduct diplomacy, and wage war. The East India Company maintained its own standing army, which at one point numbered more than a quarter million troops – twice the size of the regular British Army. After the Battle of Plassey in 1757 the EIC extended its control over much of the Indian subcontinent as well as Hong Kong, which it maintained until the British Government assumed direct rule over India following the Indian Mutiny of 1857. In the following years, the East India Company rapidly declined, and the company that once accounted for half of the world’s trade was finally dissolved in 1874. The London Times offered this obituary of the EIC: “It accomplished a work such as in the whole history of the human race no other trading Company ever attempted, and such as none, surely, is likely to attempt in the years to come.”

Collection : World coins - medieval to present