Very Fine+, Extremely Rare.

This extremely rare rupee was struck during the second Anglo-Mysore War, when Haider Ali being friends with the French, invaded the Carnatic region, in retaliation of the British occupation of the French port of Mahe on the Malabar Coast. Haider occupied Arcot on 3 November 1780 and conducted attacks on various British possessions from his base there. He died suddenly in 1782 and the War ended two years later in 1784 with the treaty of Mangalore. The AH/RY combination on the coin is curious – while AH 1196 correspond to 1781AD and falls perfectly well in the period of Haider's occupation of Arcot, RY17 does not match with this. It is certainly not the RY of Shah Alam II. It might most likely be the RY of Hyder counted from an event in 1763-64, which is close to the foundation of 'Sultanate of Mysore' under Haider.