Did you know about the coin brought out by Raghunatharaya, the ruler of Thondamanadu near Srikalahasti, as early as in 1560 with Telugu script while ruling the princely state of Pudukkottai in Tamil Nadu? With an image of a Goddess on one side and the Telugu word ‘Vijaya’ on the other, it attained fame as ‘Amman Kasu’ at that time.
Visitors, especially school children, were awestruck at such interesting pieces of information disseminated at the artefacts exhibition that concluded at Regional Science Centre here on Friday.
The ancient coins, currency, stamps apart, the expo brought the old curiosity shop to the fore, with yesteryear items such as an old gramophone, different types of radio transistors, telephone instruments and bulky locks, then apparently used to guard temples. Coins belonging to 167 countries, currency notes of around 100 countries, stamps of several nations were kept on display by a curio collector T. Suresh Reddy, working as a police constable for 24 years, who never misses an expo.
“After the postal system came to India, various states such as the Nizam and Wadiyars, apart from the British, used stamps for communication. We have an impressive collection”, he says.
“The independent Indian government issued the first ‘Naya Paisa’ in 1956-57 made of copper, which was later made of nickel”, says another collector G.V. Simhadri (78), who recalls the occasion during his student days in the then Madras.
What turned out to be the cynosure of all eyes were the replicas of iconic buildings made with hundreds of coins. Not only children, even elders gathered closer and curiously peered at the Ananda Nilayam (Tirumala temple), Charminar and India Gate images, made with coins of 10 paisa to ₹2 denominations.
The centre which generally gets 300 visitors on a lean day and 700 during the weekend, witnessed an impressive footfall of over 2,000 persons during the weeklong exhibition period, says RSC project coordinator M.M.K. Balaji.
