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Mindon Min reigned as the penultimate King of Burma between 1853-1878. Today, he is widely known as one of the most popular and revered kings of Burmese history, responsible for founding the last royal capital in Mandalay as well as introducing the first machine struck coins to Burma.
Prior to his reign, war broke out between Great Britain and Burma because of tax issues, leaving much of Burma in British hands, including the Martaban and Pegu provinces as well as Rangoon. No formal peace treaty was ever signed, but for practical purposes a border was formed between British Burma and the Independent Kingdom of Upper Burma.
In the aftermath of the war, Mindon disposed King Pagan, his brother, and took possession of Amarapura. Subsequently, he promoted Mandalay to be the capital of his kingdom and was crowned. On his ascension, Mindon had silver Kyat coins struck with an obverse of a peacock with outstretched tail feathers and a reverse stating the CS 1214 (1852-1853 AD). In Burmese mythology, the peacock is the symbol of the son, from which the King claimed descent.
Most famous of all the coins struck during his reign, was the 1852 silver 1 Kyat (type 4). The dies for these coins were all engraved by Ralph Heaton and Sons of Birmingham, England. Although Ralph Heaton and Sons provided the dies and minted a few samples, they did not undertake a production run until the Burmese mint was established in Mandalay in CS1227 (1865AD), 13 years after the dies were made. All working dies were made from the punch and most of the 16 cylinders are stamped.
Here is the approximate output of Silver Coins at the Mandalay Mint:
26,406,000 pieces of the 1 Kyat were minted, along with 1,973,000 1/2 Kyat (5 Mat)；12,866 1 Mat (1/104 Kyat), and 5,173,000 1 Mu(1/8 Kyat).
The missing denomination was 1/16 Kyat or 1 Pe. This was adopted in 1889 and the coin is difficult to obtain. The dies were purchased from Calcutta and coins were struck in the Mandalay Mint in 1889.
King Mindon Min died on October 1st, 1878 and was succeeded by one of his sons, Thibaw, who together with his wife Supayalat exerted a tyranical rule over the next seven years. Thibaw himself was weak, but he was made king due to the efforts of his mother, who tricked King Mindon on his death bed into naming Thibaw his heir. The queen thought she would have influence over Thibaw, but her efforts actually left Supayalat in control. In 1879, Supayalat persuaded Thibaw to imprison 80 members of the royal family who she and her ministers considered a threat to her influence.
While Thibaw reigned, the relationship with Britain greatly deteriorated. The Bombay Burmah Trading Corporation made many business agreements, joint ventures, loans, and many deliberately confusing contracts were made leading to Thibaw owing 1.1 million Kyat. This created opportunity for the British to lead an expedition across the border on November 14th 1885, when they advanced unopposed to 50 miles south-west of Mandalay.
With no options left, Thibaw was forced to surrender, and in February 1886 it was decided that Burma should be directly administered as a province of British India. These arrangements nominally included the Shan States, however these were not fully brought under control until 1890.
By 1890, Burmese coins and banknotes were reshaped and adopted to properly reflect a British Burma and remained that way until 1937 when Burma became a British Colony. In 1948, Burma finally achieved independence once more, and has resumed the production of coinage that properly reflects the identity and culture of the Burmese people.
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发表于 2017-8-11 09:49:42
发表于 2017-8-11 16:11:41
