What Happened to the Cupronickel Thalas of 1950 & 1954?

As a young trainee in Tencholing, Wangduephodrang in 1961, Pem Tshering, a long time civil servant – now superannuated, remembers receiving 12 pieces of one Rupee British Raj silver coins a month: 10 pieces as monthly stipend and 2 pieces as Sha-thue - meat compensation.

One Rupee silver coin of the British Raj. It is important to differentiate this coin as that belonging to the British Raj since earlier to the British Raj, it was the East India Company (EIC) who issued colonial India's silver Rupee coins

This has got to be among the earliest records of use of money in Bhutan – for payment as remuneration. He recounts that these one Rupee silver coins were so high in value that he needed to have them converted to Maartums – in order to be able to make his purchases. He would get 16 Maartums for 1 of these silver coins.

What baffles me is that Pem Tshering is adamant that the Maartums he got in exchange for the silver Rupee coins were of the following variety:

The Maartum minted in Calcutta India government mint in 1955. Another lot was earlier minted in 1951 but the detailing is not as good as the one depicted here.

Why were they paid in these Maartums that were issued in 1951 and 1955? Why not in Tikchungs or cupronickel Thalas that were issued during the same years – and in much larger quantities? What happened to them? It cannot be that they were melted down for conversion into jewelry since extremely high temperatures are needed to be able to melt them. On the other hand, I know that Tikchungs were paid out by the donkey loads – even in the extreme northern regions of the country – to pay the salaries of the RBA personnel manning the northern borders.

The cupronickel Thala minted at the government of India mint in Calcutta, in 1950, using the flawed obverse die of the original silver coin of 1928.

The earliest of the milled coins were in silver and bronze (1928/1929) which are now extremely, extremely difficult to obtain.

First milled coin of Bhutan: Silver Thala of 1928 with the flawed obverse

Bhutan's second milled coin: Silver Thala of 1929 with the corrected obverse but flawed reverse

The Zangtrum of 1928: A perfectly engraved and minted coin. If this coin is perfectly rendered, how did it happen that the silver Thala of 1928 milled the same time, came out faulty?

All of the above coins also disappeared from the face of the earth – but I have a theory on what happened to them, which I will recount in my upcoming book on the coinages of Bhutan. Sadly, the book is currently in suspended animation – due to lousy historical records that are forever in conflict with other available records.