When Gurramkonda minted coins.

A name moved between mints

Henderson’s 1921 catalogue records the transfer of the mint-name Zafarabad from Mercara to Gurramkonda in December 1785. He renders the name as City of Victory. The University of Manchester’s catalogue for Persian MS 900 independently connects a Zafarabad administrative seal with the same period. Together, the coin and manuscript records give the name a specific administrative setting.

This is not evidence that Zafarabad was Gurramkonda’s original name or its permanent former name for all purposes and all periods. Nor does every object bearing Zafarabad automatically belong to this town. Because the name was used elsewhere, issuer, date, denomination and catalogue attribution must be considered together. A word on a coin is a starting point for identification, not its conclusion.

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Reading the objects

The catalogued series includes paisas, half-paisas and quarter-paisas, with elephant designs. Henderson’s Plate IX is shown as a complete historical plate so its numbering remains legible. The Gurramkonda specimens identified by the archive are 482, 484 and 485; other specimens on the plate belong to other mints. The surrounding objects have not been cropped away and relabelled as a single local issue.

The individual coin records retain the catalogue numerals rather than translating them into invented Common Era dates. Number 482 is catalogued as a paisa; 484 is a half-paisa. The date numerals and Henderson’s noted error are preserved in their record. Although the denomination series is documented, that does not license assigning a denomination or calendar to every museum object from its appearance alone.

The British Museum record 1928,0608.40 assigns an alloy coin to Sultan Tipu and the Zafarabad mint, with the date 1218 as catalogued. Its description is linked from the archive; the museum photograph has not been copied without checked permission. Persian legends and calendar systems deserve close object-level reading. This edition does not supply an unverified inscription transcription or turn 1218 into an ordinary CE date.

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Why the mint matters

The mint association changes how the town can be understood. Gurramkonda was not only a place whose walls had to be defended; its name also entered records of money and administration. Coins and a manuscript seal link the local story to the wider organisation of Mysore without requiring a claim that every transaction or every town document used the same name.

The location of the mint itself remains unknown in this project. A catalogue attribution identifies a historical place of issue, not a GPS point or a surviving workshop. The appropriate conclusion is both substantial and limited: Gurramkonda became associated with Tipu’s Zafarabad mint-name, and surviving records allow that association to be studied. They do not establish an unquestioned universal renaming of the settlement.

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Family connections beside the mint record

The maternal-family connection belongs alongside this monetary history, without becoming an explanation for the mint-name. Mir Ali Raza Khan’s relationship to Tipu and the family’s Gurramkonda ties help describe the people connected with the place. Henderson’s catalogue provides the separate evidence for the transfer of the name Zafarabad in December 1785 and its use for the mint.

No reviewed source says that Gurramkonda received this name because of Fakhr-un-Nissa or in commemoration of the maternal family. Nor does the regional use of Gurramkonda and Zafarabad in a family tradition turn the mint-name into a universal name for the settlement across all periods. The family, political and numismatic records illuminate one another only when their different claims remain clear.

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