Coins, weights and communal riots

NEW DELHI: In July 2008, Indore became a victim of communal riots. Shops were shut. Curfew was declared. But nothing could stop Umesh K Bahri in his relentless quest. "The scrap dealers were mostly Muslims and the junkyards were located in a communally sensitive area. But I managed to meet them. A couple of them opened their shops for me and I managed to pick up a couple of weights," he says.
For Bahri, a 48-year-old businessman from Gujarat's Jamnagar district, collecting rare coins and weights is life. Everything else is just small change.
When not chasing old coins and weights, he is a consultant to shipping companies supplying them trained manpower. But for all practical purposes, he lives for his enviable collection of over 300 rare weights and over 2,000 coins. "I started collecting these relics of princely states since 2001 when my son Rohan discovered my school days' collection. It prompted me to take up the hobby again," he says. He keeps adding to his collection every month.
To pursue his love affair, Bahri has travelled across India, even rummaging through dozens of scrap yards. A couple of years back, he got lucky in Mandvi, a port town in Kutch. "I picked up an old lock in brass manufactured by the world-famous English lock-making company, Chubb & Sons of London, under licence to the British Queen Victoria with the emblem of the East India Company on the front and the name of an Indian trading company based in Zanzibar embossed on the back of the lock," he says.
The numismatist who specialises in coins of former princely states of Gujarat, Nawanagar and Kutch, owns all copper, silver and gold ones minted by these states. "I recently picked up a set of two gold coins brought out in 1947 by Kutch state on the occasion of India's independence with a slogan, Jai Hind. Kutch was the only state to mint coins to celebrate the occasion," he says. He also owns coins of Junagadh, Porbandar, Baroda, Bhavnagar, Rajkot, Jaffrabad, Radhanpur and Lunawada states. About 18 months ago, Bahri added the Nawanagar gold kori from Spinks auction in the United Kingdom.
In 2009, he procured 11 precious coins in Delhi to add to his existing pool. Most of these coins belonged to the state of Baroda while one copper coin was from Janjira, a fortress kingdom near Mumbai, which was ruled by the Ahmednagar kingdom's Abyssynian regent Malik Ambar in the 15th century. "The writing on the coin is in Urdu," says Bahri who says they belong to the late 18th century.
The coins' mintmarks fascinate. A mintmark denotes point or period of origin. The marks span a wide gamut: lotus, perfume bottle, rising sun, hoof of a horse, also the Latin letter 'T' dating back to 1800. Coins from Kutch and Jodhpur have a kataar (dagger) as mintmark, while the one belonging to the Mughal period has a fish mintmark. ""The Mughals used to admire the fish as they believed it gave them power. So you'll find the fish emblem on their weights, flags, weapons and coins,"" says Bahri, whose hobby has made him part historian as well.
Today Bahri's collection also includes ancient Indian weights like tolas, sers (Indian measure of weight), gadianas (measure of silver and gold), ounces and pounds. ""These weights are fascinating because they carry the name of the state, its ruler and the year of mintage. In special cases they have the coat of arms of the state,"" he says.
Cast in bronze or iron, these weights come in different shapes and sizes: from peanut, pentagon to even bell-shaped. "The gadianas are cast in bronze, the smallest is the size of a 25 paisa coin," he says. Weights issued by the British carry the bust of King George V while those of princely states' carry their monogram with a mention of its monetary value on it. "I have collected hundreds of these rare weights ranging from 50 different states including some very small ones like Chuda, Maliya, Bilkha, Lakhtar and Gondal (Gujarat)." Others are from Indore, Bhopal, Dewas Junior and Gwalior (Madhya Pradesh).
While the oldest weight in Bahri's possession is from Bhavnagar dating back to the early 19th century and weighs 11.6 g, the largest one is from Morbi and weighs 2 maunds (equivalent to 40 kilos today) and the smallest one is in bronze from Kutch, weighing 2.3 g.
Incredibly, his collection is not insured. "None of the companies are prepared to insure the collection as they have no basis to fix the value of the items in my collection," he says. He is reticent about the expenditure on his collection.
Acquiring these rare weights is extremely difficult nowadays as a majority of them have been melted for their metal content. But Bahri's passion is unrelenting. Once on a trip to Bhopal, he picked up some rare coins dating back to 1888, but had a tough time convincing airport security when the metal content triggered the alarm at the scanner.
The businessman also owns over 1,100 stamp papers from 60 different states of varying denominations and vintage. "The oldest dates back 250 years, some are printed on linen while one court fee stamp is from an area as small as 5 square miles," he says.
Passions, as they say, are limitless.