Ramatankas

Years ago, I discovered the coins of the British Raj. There were beautiful silver coins, about the size of a florin, bearing the portrait of Queen Victoria for a fraction of the price of a similar coin of Britain. I also figured that these would be appreciated one day and therefore would be a good investment which has now come true after 25 years!The best way to find these coins was to go to Coin Fairs which are also interesting and entertaining in the wide range of things on offer: books, antiquities, medals and jewellery. When I was looking for coins from India I found some mysterious tokens about the size of an old penny which were obviously not coins but showed a small range of designs of similar style. I was told that these were temple tokens but nobody knew how they were used.These tokens were quite common and almost worthless. They were usually found in the dealer's trays of junk where anyone could rummage through heaps of small change from anywhere in the world in the hope of finding something valuable. They nearly always contained a few temple tokens and I acquired a variety of different designs for a few pence each.Living in Birmingham and working in Hospitals I knew a lot of people from India to whom I showed these tokens in the hope of getting some information about them. Usually they looked at them with surprise and said they had never seen them before. The tokens were obviously to do with the Hindu religion and the figures shown were identified as Rama and Sitha with Hanuman, the monkey god. I even went to see a man who had a reputation as a Hindu scholar but again drew a blank. When the Internet became available I again searched for information without success.The breakthrough came when I showed them at a meeting of our Numismatic Society - a member told me that they were known as Ramatankas and that there was a book about them. The book was by Michael Mitchiner, a renowned numismatist with a wide knowledge of Asiatic coinage and tokens.The next breakthrough was from the cover of Mitchiner's book which is subtitled "Hindu Religious Tokens Illustrating Themes from Ramayana". This slim volume covered nearly all the designs I had found and explained how they were made and used but next I had to get a copy of the Ramayana. This is a cracking good read and tells of the adventures of Rama who is like Odysseus, Hercules and Robin Hood all rolled into one.Alan Ogden

BIRMINGHAM

Numismatic Society