Rewriting History of Bhutan’s Modern Coinage

The Annual Report of The Director of Mint, United States Government Printing Office, Washington – for the fiscal year ended June 30, 1930, reads as follows:

US government mint report for the year 1929

The coinage about which the above report speaks of is Bhutan's first ever milled silver Thala of 1929. A total  of 20,000 pieces were struck - valued at Nu.10,000.00. The following is the coin the obverse die of which was erroneously crafted.

The Thala of 1929 with the erroneous obverse

The Annual Report of The Director of Mint, United States Government Printing Office, Washington – for the fiscal year ended June 30, 1931, reads as follows:

US government mint report for the year 1930

The coinage about which the above report speaks of is Bhutan's second milled silver Thala of 1930. In an effort to correct the mistake in the obverse of the Thala of 1929, a second lot of 30,000 pieces were struck - valued at Nu.15,000.00. Unfortunately while the obverse was corrected, the reverse was yet again flawed. The mint used the same old reverse die. Thus while the year of coining should have been stated as "Sa Drue Lo", it was erroneously indicated as "Sa Druk Lo".

The following is the silver Thala of 1930:

The second issue of the silver Thala - with the wrong year of coinage

As of now the dates of issue for the above two Thalas are recorded as 1928 and 1929. I will be correcting the record in my upcoming book on Bhutan's coining journey.