The Currency BazaarReal or fake — with real sale prices
1818 East India Company Hanuman coin — real or fake, and what it really sells for
The piece reading EAST INDIA COMPANY, a value in annas (half, one or two) and the date 1818, with Hanuman or Ram Darbar on the other side, is not a coin the Company ever issued. Numismatists call it a fantasy piece — a token made and sold to tourists and pilgrims — and India’s fact-checkers (BOOM, Alt News, The Quint, Factly) have rated the viral claims about it false. In the completed sales we record at independent coin shops, not one of these pieces appears — while genuine East India Company copper coins sold 24 times, for a median of ₹450.
What the East India Company actually struck
- 1616: the Company had only just begun trading in India and had no mint of its own — it took its silver to the Mughal mint at Surat. Its first mints came decades later: Madras around 1640, and Bombay, where its first English-style coins were struck, in 1672.
- 1717: Emperor Farrukhsiyar let the English strike Mughal-style coins at Bombay — with Persian legends in the emperor’s name. No Hanuman, no Ram Darbar.
- 1835: the Coinage Act brought one uniform coinage. The silver rupees carry William IV’s portrait (Queen Victoria’s from 1840) with the value in English and Persian. The copper coins — 1/12, 1/4 and 1/2 anna — carry the Company’s coat of arms on one side and the value with “EAST INDIA COMPANY” on the other.
- No coin reading “EAST INDIA COMPANY” with a value in annas shows Hanuman, Ram, Sita or the Ram Darbar, and fact-checkers found no Company coin of any kind showing Ram, Sita or the Ram Darbar. The Company’s coins with Hindu imagery all come from Madras and are small Indian-style pieces: gold pagodas showing Venkateshwara (Vishnu), with his consorts on the early ones and alone on the Star Pagoda; from 1808 to about 1815, gold and silver pagodas with a temple gateway (gopuram) and Vishnu; and tiny silver Vishnu fanams. One catalogue also lists a very early Madras gold pagoda (1643–1677) with a crude Hanuman figure. None of them looks anything like the 1818 piece.
So what is the piece in your hand?
Most likely a modern token, made in brass or copper and sold cheaply to pilgrims and tourists. Coin catalogues file it that way: Numista, citing Michael Mitchiner’s Indian Tokens (1998), lists the 1818 Hanuman half anna as a religious token — “a modern fantasy token”. The same design is sold with different dates — 1616, 1717, 1818, 1835, 1839 — sometimes as a set of five. A genuine coin is known only in the few dates catalogued for its type — 1835 and 1845 for the Company’s half anna; a souvenir carries whichever date sells.
Two real things sit close to it, and they are worth knowing apart:
- Ram tanka (Ram Darbar) temple tokens are genuine and some are old: made for pilgrims and for worship, not as money — the fact-checker BOOM notes they were never legal tender. Old ones carry no “East India Company” and no denomination. Old silver ones have a collector value; modern brass copies do not.
- A real coin with Hanuman does exist — the copper paisa of Ratlam State (1890), and older Dhar State paise. They are princely-state coins, not East India Company ones; in our records the ones sold went for ₹1,000 and ₹1,206. The Mughal emperor Akbar also struck a few Ram–Sita coins in 1604–05 — only a handful are known.
What these really sell for
| What was sold | Completed sales | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Genuine East India Company copper coins (1/12, 1/4, 1/2 anna, 1/2 pice) | 24 | median ₹450 · ₹248–₹1,080 |
| Ratlam / Dhar State Hanuman paisa (genuine) | 2 | ₹1,000, ₹1,206 |
| “East India Company” Hanuman or Ram Darbar pieces | 0 | no completed sale |
Temple tokens — mostly Hanuman and Ram Darbar, silver ones included — are offered at a median asking price of ₹1,000 across 50 listings we track (the middle half between ₹688 and ₹2,688). Those are what sellers hope for, not what anyone paid — and not one of them appears among completed sales.
On this site, some listings for such pieces have arrived asking ₹5,00,000 to ₹44,44,444. Our price check held those back, because in the completed sales we record nothing like them has sold anywhere near that price. The check stops only very large prices, so a listing here at a few thousand rupees is not vouched for by us — the checks below apply to it too.
How to check yours
- A god or goddess together with “EAST INDIA COMPANY” and a value in annas means a token. No Company anna coin carries a deity.
- A genuine “EAST INDIA COMPANY … HALF ANNA” shows the Company’s coat of arms and a date of 1835 or later. A half anna dated 1616, 1717 or 1818 matches no genuine coin — in 1616 the Company struck no coins at all.
- “UK” at the top, the same piece offered with several dates, or the same “1818 one anna” sold at 20 g, 50 g, 100 g and 250 g, means a product, not currency. A coin is struck to one weight.
- The Company’s two annas was a small silver coin of about 1.5 g. A copper “2 anna 1818” cannot be one.
- A genuine 1835 half anna, for comparison: copper, about 12.4–13 g and 30–31 mm, the Company’s coat of arms with the date on one side and “HALF ANNA” in a wreath on the other. Weight alone proves nothing — some tokens are made close to it; the design decides.
- Magnets, rice, torches and “power” tests prove nothing. They are the props of the “rice puller” fraud.
The fraud built on this coin
“Hanuman coin” deals worth crores are a police matter, not a market. In Odisha alone, police have arrested people for trying to sell “Hanuman coins” for ₹2 crore, and in August 2026, OdishaBytes reported, linked a kidnapping in Balangir to an alleged deal over one. In those police reports it is the buyer who loses: people hand over lakhs for a promised “Hanuman coin”. Sellers face a different fraud, the one aimed at every old-coin owner: an ad or a caller promises lakhs for ordinary old coins, then asks the seller for a fee — “RBI registration”, “clearance”, GST — and keeps asking.
Questions people ask
Is the 1818 East India Company Hanuman coin real?
No. The “EAST INDIA COMPANY” piece with Hanuman or Ram Darbar is a modern token. There is no record of any East India Company coin showing Ram, Sita or the Ram Darbar, nor of any “EAST INDIA COMPANY” anna coin showing Hanuman.
What is the 1818 Hanuman coin worth?
In the completed sales we record at independent coin shops it has not sold once. Such tokens are offered for a few hundred to a few thousand rupees — asking prices, not sales. Genuine East India Company copper coins sold for a median of ₹450 across 24 sales.
Does the RBI buy old coins?
No. In a public warning on 4 August 2021 the RBI said it does not deal in such transactions and never asks for any charge or commission. Anyone who asks you for an “RBI fee” is running a fraud.
Is there a real coin with Hanuman on it?
Yes — the copper paisa of Ratlam State (1890) and older Dhar State paise. They are princely-state coins, not East India Company ones.
Sources
Prices: completed sales recorded at independent coin shops, read up to 2026-10-03; asking prices are never mixed in. Facts checked against the sources above on 3 October 2026.
Asked to pay a fee to sell your coin?
That is the fraud this page describes. A real buyer never asks the seller for money, whether for the RBI, clearance, GST or export.
How the scam works