Definitive Coins - One Rupee - Part 2

This topic is organized in multiple posts. The post deals about the steel issues

Part One: Nickel and Cupro Nickel Large and small Issues
Part Two: This Post
Part Three: Steel Issues from New Floral Design

The Rs 1 denomination gave way to Steel to control the costs. Although steel was introduced for values below one rupee in 1988, for denomination of Rs 1 it took 4 more years. The coins were minted from 1992. It was only in 2004 that the Rs 2 coins were minted in steel.

Amongst the most controversial coins of the times, the Unity in Diversity theme was adopted for the Definitive coins. The Rs 1 was struck with a date of 2004 to 2006 and the only coin for the year 2004. The Rs 2 coin was most widely available in circulation. The Rs 5 was struck with only one date of 2007 from Kolkata mint. Although the coins were struck only for a brief period of 3 years, there are quite a few die variations and other mysteries. The best being the Orientation of the Obverse with respect to the Reverse.

Die Varieties:

The 2004 Mumbai, 2005 Kolkata & Hyderabad come in 2 Orientation of obverse and Reverse. This would be the only design where we have multiple orientation for the same coin. There are also Die Rotation errors that are in between the above 2 orientations.

The Hyderabad mint also has a mint mark variety.

This is only design in the republic coinage that has the value written in words in both English; i.e. “One in English” and “Ek in Hindi” on the Reverse. The only other design where value is spelt out in Hindi are the 1964 designs after dropping of the word “Naya”.

The controversial “Unity in Diversity” design soon gave way to other designs. On the coins of 50 paise, Rs 1 and Rs 2, the Mudra design was adopted and on Rs 5 and Rs 10 the “Connectivity and IT” design was adopted. For more on these 3 designs, read the article “A Tale of 3 Designs”

The design on Rs 1 was Hand Gesture from Bharat Natyam, “Shikhara” meaning Heroism.

Even this design survived only for a brief period from 2007 to 2011.

The Mudra design is the only time when the designated Obverse does not have a Value on it. Typically in the Indian Definitive Coinage, the Obverse was always the side with Value. The Reverse was the common design side. However in the Mudra series, the Reverse is different for different denomination where as the Obverse is same / similar.