The first design of the Rs 10 Bi-Metallic coin with the theme Unity in Diversity was in the year 2004.
The Rs 1 coin was released in 2004. However quite a few sections of people objected to this and they directly associated this to "Crusification of Jesus Christ". See a related story in newspaper here. It certainly did not help much that Congress was in Power with Chief Sonia Gandhi who practices the religion. There was a hue and cry for all quarters; coming into power this was seen as the first change.
This did not go well and also resulted in not issuing the Inaugural issue of Rs 10, 2004 coin in single coin collector’s pack by Kolkata mint.
In order to resolve the issue, the mint masters thought an innovative solution would solve the problem. They just ordered that the dies be placed in such a way that + looks like X. Problem solved. Hence most of the 2005 coins are with this alignment.
Alas! it lead to more uproar, as until now, the coin was called PLUS coin [doesn’t create the impact], they immediately started call it CROSS coin. Oops. It now more directly associated with Christ.
In a mad scramble, the mint masters ordered that these be oriented as initially designed. There are few 2006 coins with X, but whether these are die-rotation errors, or an order received late is hard to tell.
But then by that time it was too late, the name to the design stuck as CROSS and not as Unity in Diversity. The Government was forced to stop minting these coins. In the year 2008, these were replaced by “Mudra” series for lower denominations of 50 Paise, One and Two rupees. For Five and Ten Rupees the “Connectivity and Information Technology” theme was adopted.
A 50 Paise coin was also designed but never minted. The Rs 5 coin that was struck only in the year 2007 as the decision to stop coins with Cupro-Nickel due to cost and replace wth FSS took some time. This [Rs 5 Cross] is amongst the rare coins of recent times in definitive series.
The Story
The Unity in Diversity theme was supposed to be a PLUS symbol with 4 dots. The meaning as per press release was "4 Heads sharing a common body".The Rs 1 coin was released in 2004. However quite a few sections of people objected to this and they directly associated this to "Crusification of Jesus Christ". See a related story in newspaper here. It certainly did not help much that Congress was in Power with Chief Sonia Gandhi who practices the religion. There was a hue and cry for all quarters; coming into power this was seen as the first change.
This did not go well and also resulted in not issuing the Inaugural issue of Rs 10, 2004 coin in single coin collector’s pack by Kolkata mint.
In order to resolve the issue, the mint masters thought an innovative solution would solve the problem. They just ordered that the dies be placed in such a way that + looks like X. Problem solved. Hence most of the 2005 coins are with this alignment.
Alas! it lead to more uproar, as until now, the coin was called PLUS coin [doesn’t create the impact], they immediately started call it CROSS coin. Oops. It now more directly associated with Christ.
In a mad scramble, the mint masters ordered that these be oriented as initially designed. There are few 2006 coins with X, but whether these are die-rotation errors, or an order received late is hard to tell.
But then by that time it was too late, the name to the design stuck as CROSS and not as Unity in Diversity. The Government was forced to stop minting these coins. In the year 2008, these were replaced by “Mudra” series for lower denominations of 50 Paise, One and Two rupees. For Five and Ten Rupees the “Connectivity and Information Technology” theme was adopted.
A 50 Paise coin was also designed but never minted. The Rs 5 coin that was struck only in the year 2007 as the decision to stop coins with Cupro-Nickel due to cost and replace wth FSS took some time. This [Rs 5 Cross] is amongst the rare coins of recent times in definitive series.
The Design
Single Coin Inagural Set: Coin of Rs 10
how many such Rs.10 2004 coins were minted?are these in circulation?
ReplyDeleteAs per my knowledge there were no coins with date 2004 put into circulation. The circulation coins were from date 2005.
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