City-based numismatist Jatin Soni has a collection of rare Indian coins from 17th to mid 20th century.
It was a gift 20 years ago that introduced Jatin Soni, an artist, to the world of numismatics. And since then, there has been no looking back for him. Today, he has an enviable collection of rare Indian coins from the 17th century to the mid 20th century. Hoping to share the rare with the rest, he put up an exhibition of coins from his private collection at Kanoria Centre for Arts gallery.
“When my friend gifted me the coin, I found it very attractive and thought of collecting more of them. I frequently used to go to scrap dealers and goldsmiths to buy rare coins,” he said. He added that the difficulties he faced while collecting rare coins forced him to study numismatics.
“The British coins were easy to identify as they would have a mention of the year. However, the Mughal coins had no such information and hence were difficult to identify.” Of the 47 frames on display, 15 belong to the British era from 1835 to 1947. The remaining are from the era of the Mughals and Portuguese as well as from independent kingdoms of Tipu Sultan and the Gaikwads.
Soni also shared a couple of incidents that added the rarest jewels to his collection. “Once my mother got me 15 coins from a scrap market for Rs1,000.
To my surprise it had one coin from the year 1935 belonging to the time of Second World War. Today, its worth is around Rs4.5 lakh,” said Soni.
He added: “There is a rare currency note I have from 1947 which I got from a guy who came to me with some superstitious beliefs. After convincing him, I got that note whose worth today might be around Rs20 lakh.”
Soni estimates his collection to be worth more than Rs30 lakh.
Explaining his interest in collecting coins only from India, he said, “I realised that most of the valuable coins and antiques from India have been moved out of the country. So, I thought of collecting these coins. I have decided never to sell them.”
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