TTD planning to preserve 1200 foreign coins with antique value

By Express News Service

RAJAMAHENDRAVARAM: G Venkata Ratnam, Assistant Director of Archaeology department has said that they have assessed the antique value of nearly 28 tonnes of foreign coins mainly from Malaysia and UAE and have found over 1,200 coins having antique value during the recent verification carried out at the hill shrine of Lord Venkateswara in Tirumala.

He visited Rallabandi Subba Rao Archaeological Museum here on Tuesday. Speaking on the occasion, he said a team of nine officials from the department of archaeology and museums led by its commissioner Dr G Vani Mohan carried out the verification and assessment of foreign coins from May 6 to 18 at TTD and came up with several findings. They found a huge quantum of foreign coins out of the 28 tonnes to be from Malaysia and identified them to be of denominations of 50, 20, 10 and five sen. These coins are made of steel, copper, silver and gold-coloured metal of varied sizes. Some coins belonged to the United Arab Emirates.

The archaeology authorities noticed some coins having emblems of British Queen Elizabeth, Victoria while some were having George V, George VI, Edward VII (gold coin) and some silver coins have emblems of Nizam-ul-Mulk and the famous Charminar of Hyderabad. As the foreign coins have the date of issue embossed on them, the authorities have identified those coins as being dated nearly 75 years back and have been declared as having antique value. Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) sources say that the foreign coins were subjected to verification and assessment with an intention to preserve those having antique value. 

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