544 Notice of Forged Bactrian coins in No. 100. [No. 101. 



commendable zeal leads them to give higher prices for these coins 

 than prudence warrants; and I fear that many will find their col- 

 lections diminish in value as their numismatic knowledge increases, 

 and enables them to detect the spurious coins they have purchased. 



The goldsmiths in northern Afghanistan are, I believe, chiefly, if 

 not all, Hindoos, who have been accustomed from their youth to 

 the casting of gold and silver into an infinity of small forms, and 

 to the making casts of old coins, with figures of their Deities, to be 

 worn as charms round the neck. 



I have myself seen a dozen brass casts from two different gold 

 coins of Govinda Chundra Deva of Kanouj ; one cast was remark- 

 able in having no inscription side, two moulds of the obverse hav- 

 ing been placed together to form a piece with the seated figure Durga 

 on each side. These casts were made openly when deception was no 

 object, but when 100 rupees are asked for a tetradrachm of An» 

 timachus, and the same sum for a tetradrachm of Euthydemus, we 

 may be certain that the same man, who would make a few casts 

 from an ancient coin for the sake of the small profit to be obtained 

 from one or two native customers, will now multiply casts of the 

 genuine coins that may fall into their hands for the sake of the 

 high prices that are given for all coins of Bactrian appearance by 

 many of our countrymen, whose nuniismatic experience is not yet 

 sufficient to distinguish a true coin from a forged one. 



The forgery of coins is no novelty in India, for the high prices 

 given for the Zodiac coins of Jehariger, soon excited the cupidity of 

 forgers, who produced the whole of the twelve signs both in gold 

 and in silver — no complete silver set of genuine Zodiac coins has, 

 so far as I have been able to learn, yet been obtained. 



In 1837 I saw Mr. Laing's cabinet containing nine silver Zodiacal 

 coins, all of which were forgeries, stamped by a die imitated from 

 genuine gold coins, which differ both in type and in inscription from 

 the silver coins; — and which, joined to their hardness and crude- 

 ness of outline, are the best tests for distinguishing the forged coins 

 from the true ones. 



ALEXANDER CUNNINGHAM. 



