India (Baroda State) Pai, Paisa, and 2 Paisa 1883 to 1893

Now these are really neat coins. All of them are made of copper, but the one in our picture has picked up some nice blue toning, giving it excellent eye appeal. You can buy them for very little money, but I don't think that will last forever. Coins from India will surely increase in price as modern communications works to expose more and more people to the beauty and intricacies of these coins.

There are three denominations which use the curved sword and vine wreath pattern:

PAI: 18 mm approximate diameter
PAISA: 24 mm
2 PAISA: 28 mm

Catalog values for these coins run as follows. Get them while you can at these bargain levels. Of course, never buy coins that do not look nice. Value is driven by collector demand and collectors pay premiums for coins with strong eye appeal.

PAI
worn: less than $1 US dollar approximate catalog value
average circulated: $5
well preserved: $10

PAISA
worn: less than $1 US dollar approximate catalog value
average circulated: $6
well preserved: $15

2 PAISA
worn: $1 US dollar approximate catalog value
average circulated: $10
well preserved: $25

The values above apply very approximately to all dates. The coin catalogs show a few variations which are somewhat more valuable, but such variations are beyond the scope of CoinQuest. If you get interested in these coins, be sure to invest in a good coin catalog. There is easily 1000 times more information in a coin catalog than on this web site.

You have to know two things to transform the date to a Western (Gregorian) date. First, you have to know the numeric characters, many of which are shown here, but there are others characters not shown in our figure. Then you have to know that some Baroda coins use the Vikrama Samvat (VS) calendar system, which is 57 years ahead of the Gregorian system. To find the AD date from the VS date, subtract 57 years.

The coin in our image is dated VS1949, or 1892AD.
cqLastNotify