Relations between Bhutan and the Koch Kingdom (modern day Cooch Behar within the state of West Bengal) go back centuries. In fact written records now confirm that Bhutan’s earliest silver Maartums were hammered in Cooch Behar – not in Bhutan. Those coins were most often referred to as Deb Rupee – Rupee of the Deb – or Druk Desi’s coins. The metal used was silver.
Bhutan was flush with foreign coins – I believe that of the coins of eight foreign countries that found their way into Bhutan, the most numerous were the Narayani of Koch Kingdom, Baltum from Nepal, Boetum from Tibet and Rupee of East India Company/British India Government. The earliest of these coins were all in silver.
Amazingly, some of those coins still survive in Bhutan. Recently I acquired the following Koch Kingdom’s earliest known silver coin – called the "Narayani" - symbolically from a remote village in Chhukha, close to the State of West Bengal:
Koch Kingdom’s most powerful king - Maharaja Naranarayan, son of Maharaja Biswa Singh of Cooch Dynasty, issued the above coin. It was issued to commemorate his coronation that took place in 1555. Thus this coin is close to four and a half centuries old.
During late 1780's, the British government shut down the Cooch Behar mints - resulting in stoppage of supply of coins to Bhutan. This is when Bhutan was forced to start to hammer our own coins. Some say hammering coins in Bhutan began in 1790.
In 1866, the British India government stopped the circulation of the Narayani coins altogether. Thereafter no Narayanis were issued, although the ruling Maharajas of Cooch Behar did issue commemorative coins on the first day of their accession to the throne.
UPDATE FROM AN EXPERT:
A coin historian and an expert on Indian coins tells me that I have the earliest version of the coin. He explained that in the earliest version, the alphabets were separated. The later versions had joined alphabets - as follows:
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