Nepal 1/2, 1, 2, and 5 Paisa (Tribhuvana Bir Bikram) 1918 to 1930

Peter sent us a picture of his coin. Peter's coin, which is shown in our secondary picture, is quite worn and battered, but you never see these coins in good condition. If you have one in good condition, hold on to it. The market will surely rise for these exotic coins as the Internet introduces more and more people to the King of Hobbies.

We believe Peter has a 5 paisa coin, although we cannot decipher the date. You have to know two things to figure out the date and transform it to a Western (Gregorian) date. First, you have to know the numeric characters, shown here. (There are others found on Nepalese coins which are not in our figure.) Then you have to know that Nepalese coins use three different dating systems: the NS and SE systems before 1888AD, and the Vikrama Samvat (VS) system after. (This is an oversimplification.) To find the AD date from the VS date, subtract 57 years. The coin in our main picture is dated 1978VS, which is 1921AD.

These listings give very approximate values. Coins in well preserved condition are probably worth more than this (as discussed above):

1/2 PAISA (19 mm diameter)
worn: $10 US dollars approximate catalog value
average circulated: $25
well preserved: $60

1 PAISA (22 mm diameter)
worn: $2 US dollars approximate catalog value
average circulated: $10
well preserved: $80

2 PAISA (26 mm diameter)
worn: $2 US dollars approximate catalog value
average circulated: $10
well preserved: $80

5 PAISA (30 mm diameter)
worn: $4 US dollars approximate catalog value
average circulated: $5
well preserved: $8
fully uncirculated: $15

The 5 paisas come in rough, hand-struck form, as well as better machine-struck form. Both are worth about the same as the values above, but the Standard Catalog shows the 1988VS hand-struck and the 1991 machine-struck as better dates, worth ten times the values above.
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