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Trip down historical avenues filled with coins, stamps

— Photo: T. Singaravelou

KINDLING INTEREST: A stall containing coins and bank notes of various periods at the numismatic and philatelic exhibition in Puducherry.

PUDUCHERRY: From the first stamp of Asia to gold coins of the Mughal era and bank notes of various periods, countries, an exhibition presented a journey into the annals of world history through unique collection of stamps, coins and bank notes.

With a view to encouraging children to take up hobbies, the Indo French Philatelic and Numismatic Association organised the first NU-PHILEX 2008 Numismatic and Philatelic Exhibition from August 8 to 10. A total of 60 participants including students from various schools presented their collections at the exhibition.

“The basic idea of the exhibition is to create awareness among students and youth in Puducherry. In this electronic age, students are attracted by videogames and Internet, ignoring the past. Stamps and history take you to history and children should be encouraged to start any hobby,” Secretary of the Association A.V. Jeyachandran said.

Collections of stamps of birds, medicinal plants, events, flowers, political leaders, butterflies, railways of various countries and periods found place in the exhibition. Paper money used in the Madras Circle from 1843 to 1861, bank notes of various countries including those used in the Indo-French territories were other attractions.

“Coins belonging to 17th century carry the name of Puducherry denoting the existence of the name earlier itself. We have stalls from Rajasthan, Chennai, Andhra Pradesh, Bangalore, Amritsar and Malaysia,” he added.

Among other unique collections, fancy numbers of Indian rupee notes of various denominations and freak notes such as those in which the reverse side was not printed or missing serial numbers drew attention from visitors.

S. Aravind, a student of Standard VII of Amalorpavam Higher Secondary School, has 120 coins in his collection started from Standard I. His collection of coins dates to the 16th century to the latest ones in 2008. His schoolmate R. Natarajan, who displayed coins from countries such as Britain, France, Tokyo and Sri Lanka, wants to collect more including different kinds of stamps.

Students of Government Girls Middle School at Muthirapalayam displayed their collection of Indian and foreign coins and stamps of various periods.

In the prize winning category, St. Patrick School bagged the award for the best school exhibit.

Prizes were given to students and those at the senior level too as part of the exhibition.

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