India - Miscellaneous - India, Punjab, AV Budkee (2.75 g.), imitation of Dutch ducat, legend ending with TOA '1777', possibly fancy date and struck later. Presumably ex mount, which has been cut off, otherwise VF+
Historical note: For the earlier part of the 18th century ducats exported by Russia to Central Asia, must have been original Dutch ducats, however from 1768 the Russians started to strike huge quantities of extremely precise imitations themselves at their mint at St. Petersburg. Despite a formal diplomatic protest to the Russian court in 1849, asking them to stop minting the imitations, the counterfeitng by the Russians still continued untill the 1870’s, after which date the supply soon dried-up.
The Russian imitations, however, remained still much in demand in the trade with Central Asia and Northern India, so that they got soon imitated. Particular the heroic image of the knight in armour on ducat, with sword and bundle of arrows, appealed particular to the martial Sikh population of the Punjab and therefore were imitated in continuity. Those imitations were particularly used in the Punjab for trade, jewelry and payment to soldiers.
Ref.: Arent Pol: JMP 69 (1982) Over herkomst en datering van de valse Nederlandse dukaten met “TOA” / Hans Herrli, 'The Budkee, an enigmatic Sikh coin' in Journal ONS #190 (Winter 2007) p.36 / Muntkoerier 2008-1, De Budkee, een raadselachtig Sikh’s munt, p.50-51 / Dariusz F. Jasek: Gold Ducats of the Netherlands, vol. 1, (2015), p.62-63