DHFUN WITH COINS Arvind Gupta（阿文德u2022古普塔DHFUN与硬币）.pdf

FUN WITH COINS Arvind Gupta People have collected coins for a very long time. Earlier coins were made of precious metals like gold and silver and people collected and hoarded them to tide over difficult economic times. Circulating coins were often “shaved” by unscrupulous people who cut off small amounts of precious metal from their edges. In Britain coins were sometimes reduced to half their minted value. The famous scientist Isaac Newton – who was also the master of the Royal Mint in Britain, su ested the idea of milling lines on the edges of the coins to detect coin shaving. You can still see these milling lines on our thick 5-rupee coin. Casual coin collectors often begin the hobby by saving notable coins found by chance. These coins may be pocket change left from an international trip or an old coin found in circulation. As old coins are expensive so coin collection became known as the “Hobby of Kings”. The systematic study of coins is called as Numismatics. During Akbars reign the main small denomination copper coin was called the dam (pronounced daam). Dam is believed to be the source of the (originally British) expression “to not give a damn” (i.e. to not care even a little). Later the dam was also referred to as the Paisa – the smallest denomination. Indian coins are mainly produced in the four cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Kolkata. Each city puts an identification mark under the year of issue. Coins produced in Delhi - have a dot; Mumbai - a diamond; Hyderabad - a star with Kolkata having nothing beneath the year. You can easily check this out with a handful of coins. With galloping inflation little can be bought with small coins. It sometimes costs more to manufacture a coin than its “intrinsic” value. For this reason on 29 June 2011 the 25-paise coin popularly called the “chavanni” was laid to rest f