Featuring the rarest of the rare, the exhibition of currency coins and notes here is a huge draw for aficionados, and thieves.
Here a gold-minted coin from the Akbar era, running into lakhs, is showcased openly to a crowd, and there, a stall owner with bundles of Indian rupee denominations arranged on a table promises to sell any note with the desired number.
At the ‘Stamps, Coins and Notes Fair’, organised by The Hyderabad Philatelic and Hobbies Society, there are dozens of such stalls, but only one or two unarmed security men to guard the whole place.
The impressive turnout only made things more chaotic. At one of the stalls, awkward scenes were witnessed as a stall owner misplaced a rare Indian rupee coin in the melee.
“The cost of the coin is around Rs.10,000 and one of the very few to be released around Independence,” curses a stall owner before heaving a sigh of relief upon finding it. At many stalls, heaps of coins belonging to various erstwhile kingdoms as well as foreign currencies were placed without much watch on it.
“This is the way we have been doing business and we do not worry much about thefts. There are instances where the coins are stolen during exhibitions but that is common. Till now I have not incurred a big loss,” says an artefact trader from West Bengal.
While the organisers made no special arrangements to secure the collection during the three-day fair, they expressed confidence that nothing untoward would happen.
“We asked the coin collectors to keep rare items with them during the night,” says B.K. Nagpal, secretary of the society. “We have not deployed lot of security or armed guards because the traders are used to protecting their collection. We had organised such fairs in the past when there were no major incidents of theft or robbery.”
Exotic collection
Some of the collection that stood out included Thai currency made from copper but shaped like a horn. Coins used by the Nizams were also eye-catching.
In one of the stalls, a trader was seen trying to sell a special collection of currency belonging to the period of Humayun till Shah Jahan. Some stalls also had currencies minted in the fourth and fifth centuries BCE. There was also a wide collection of old and new stamps and artefacts on show.
