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MALLA DYNASTY, TANKA STANDARD COINS (c1600-1640)
All the Malla coins of the tanka standard (c10.5g) are rare, as they were withdrawn from circulation about 1640 as part of a currency reform, necessary because the coinage had become so debased. In that year they were replaced by fine silver coins struck to the Mohar standard of c5.6g. The silver coinage of the Malla Dynasty was started as a fiscal measure, developed around the growing transit trade between India and Tibet that passed through Nepal. Import taxes were levied, payable only in Nepalese coin. As a result of this, and the establishment of Nepalese trading houses in Tibet, which controlled much of this trade, the Nepalese coins became widely used in Tibet during the seventeenth century as a currency medium and as a store of wealth. Indeed the coins played an essential role in the growing urban markets of Lhasa, Shigatse and Gyantse. It was only in 1763, after Prithvi Narayan laid siege to the Kathmandu Valley, and cut all trade between Nepal and Tibet, that the Tibetan authorities began to strike their own coins.
Silver Tanka (9.73g), with Arabic legend copied from tankas of 'Ala-ud-din Muhammad Shah Khilji of Delhi, but written around central circle, mace above obv, la for Lakshmi Narayana of Kathmandu (1619-41) above interlaced squares on rev. RGV.188, good fine and rare
Details
Silver Tanka (9.73g), with Arabic legend copied from tankas of 'Ala-ud-din Muhammad Shah Khilji of Delhi, but written around central circle, mace above obv, la for Lakshmi Narayana of Kathmandu (1619-41) above interlaced squares on rev. RGV.188, good fine and rare