Free time observations

This is something I saw today and I don't think many people know about this.

Have you ever noticed a symbol on the coin (Old Indian minted coins specifically) just below the space where year is written.

Like This : The one inside red circle (* marked)

Ever wondered what does this symbol represent?

What if I tell you that the above coin was minted in South Korea ? Well….continue reading to know more about these symbols.

In India, the responsibility of minting coins is given to Government of India by the Reserve Bank of India. The Indian Government Mint operates four mints in the country for the production of coins. They are in:

1. Kolkata, West Benagal (1757)
2. Mumbai, Maharashtra (1829)
3. Hyderabad, Telangana (1903)
4. Noida, Uttar Pradesh (1988)

Except for Noida, all the other three minting locations were set long before India’s Independence. These mint location have their own unique symbol which you can notice.

Now, take out any Indian Rupee coin, pay careful attention to the symbol which is just below the mentioned year.

• If the symbol is “dot” - this means that particular coin was minted in Noida.

• If the symbol is “star” - this means that particular coin was minted in Hyderabad.

• If the symbol is “diamond” - this means that particular coin was minted in Mumbai.

• If there is no symbol, it means that particular coin was minted in Kolkata, the first ever minting location of India.

In India, there was a time when these minting locations were not able to mint enough coins. So those days, the responsibility of minting coins were given to foreign countries.

Now if you have a coin which contains symbol from the following figure

then it simply means the coin was minted outside of India. Pay proper attention to the location of the symbol.

These are all the symbols currently present in all the Indian coins. There are other symbols as well that were present in old Indian coins. To know more about them you can check here - Indian Princely States

Fun Fact - In Indian Government Mint apart from these coins, medallions are also made by them. For e.g. Bharat Ratna, Param Veer Chakra, Maha Vir Chakra etc.