50 years of first coin minted in Calcutta

[akdrv]

Last Wednesday was the day when exactly 250 years ago, the East India Company minted in Calcutta and circulated the first rupee or sicca as legal tender in the Mughal province of Bengal.

 

In his lecture organised by the Society for Preservation, Calcutta, P.T. Nair, known as the city’s “barefoot historian”, said the Nawab of Bengal gave formal sanction to the British to establish a mint here in 1757 only after they had been here for 150 years. After capturing Fort William on June 20, 1756, Siraj-ud-Doulah renamed Calcutta as Alinagar.

 

After Clive defeated him and the Nawab was forced to sign the treaty and grant permission to set up a mint at Alinagar to coin sicccas and mohurs of Murshidabad standard. The Calcutta mint (1757-1791) was located in a building next to the Black Hole in the old fort — that should be where the General Post Office is situated.

 

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1070904/asp/...ory_8266909.asp