Among all the variety of English colonies in the region, own coins were issued only for Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and New Guinea. The review presents coins issued in these colonies in the first half of the 20th century.
The first own coins for Straits Settlements with a date of 1845 went into circulation on June 1, 1847. These were denominations of ¼, ½ and 1 cent minted on copper blanks. The obverse of the coins depicts the profile of Queen Victoria, on the reverse the denomination and the legend EAST INDIA COMPANY (East India Company).
In the Ottoman period, Cyprus did not have its own money. The first coins were issued in 1879, a year after the start of the British occupation. These were bronze coins in denominations of ¼, ½ and 1 piastre.
The review of coins of British India issued in the 19th century and at the beginning of the 20th century will be incomplete, if we do not mention the coins issued in the so-called "native principalities" - states on the territory of the Hindustan Peninsula, which were under the British protectorate, but formally were not part of British India. This review will be updated periodically with new sections.
I want to start the review of British coins issued in the first half of the 20th century by showing coins from the reign of Edward VII. Edward ascended the throne at a fairly mature age, at the age of 60. In the short period of his reign, he issued only one line of coins.
Translated from Sanskrit, "rupee" is forged silver. Despite the fact that written references to the rupee date back to the 3rd century BC, the first rupees as a means of calculation appeared in India in 1542 during the reign of Sher Shah. The first issue of rupee by the East India Company took place in 1677. The Madras, Bombay and Bengal presidencies of the East India Company each issued their own coins. Only in 1835 was a single silver standard introduced, according to which coins issued in the territories included in the zone of influence of the East India Company began to have a single sample and weight.
