Post by billturner on Aug 20, 2011 12:40:06 GMT -5
Blue Waters Mint has released a 4.4 gram .999 silver Palaliku Larin. Historically correct, it is made from 10 guage silver wire bent in half and folded together just as the traditional Larin prior to the early 17th century. Stamped in Arabic, the script says Minting On Larin, Year 1070 and then counterstamped with Palaliku. The folded, nearly 75 millimeter silver wire is folded in half, mashed together (like a bobby pin or closed set of tweezers) with a flattened surface created for the inscriptions. It is a rare venture into fantasy coins and only about 75 were made in two mintings. Each coin is handmade and therefore, is generally minutely different from the rest.
Fewer than 20 still remain of the lot.
The talent on this fantasy piece was Greg Franck-Weiby who had a bit of difficulty minting the pieces, needing a second set of hands to hold the coin in place.
The coin and story mirror actual history and life so much, it is difficult to tell where fact ends and fantasy ends. For example, it is a fact people on Minicoy did fish the waters around the Andaman Islands and they did fear the cannibals that lived there. Logic is the Minicoy fishermen would have set up camp on an offshore island. Palaliku, in the story, is such an island. Thus, the logical step from fact into fiction begins here.
Of note, Minicoy is really Maliku. It seems a British Government worker asked an islander the name of his home island. The islander thinking he man was asking where he had been answered Minicoy, meaning the island of cannibals. To this day, the island is officially named Minicoy but in reality it's real name was and still is Maliku.
Fewer than 20 still remain of the lot.
The talent on this fantasy piece was Greg Franck-Weiby who had a bit of difficulty minting the pieces, needing a second set of hands to hold the coin in place.
The coin and story mirror actual history and life so much, it is difficult to tell where fact ends and fantasy ends. For example, it is a fact people on Minicoy did fish the waters around the Andaman Islands and they did fear the cannibals that lived there. Logic is the Minicoy fishermen would have set up camp on an offshore island. Palaliku, in the story, is such an island. Thus, the logical step from fact into fiction begins here.
Of note, Minicoy is really Maliku. It seems a British Government worker asked an islander the name of his home island. The islander thinking he man was asking where he had been answered Minicoy, meaning the island of cannibals. To this day, the island is officially named Minicoy but in reality it's real name was and still is Maliku.