he firman granted to the East India Company by Venkatdri Naik in 1639 permitted it to “perpetually enjoy the privilege of mint age.” And, so, from the early 1640s there was a mint in the Fort. This mint was run on contract by various dubashes – Komati Chetties. They used gold imported by the Company. In the 1650s, the Company decided it would run the mint and appointed English Supervisors.

What was significant about the 1639 firman was that, despite the Vijayanagar Kingdom, which held nominal suzerainty over Tondaimandalam – where Madras was located – minting its own coins, it granted the Company minting rights. The standard coin, however, was the Vijayanagara gold pagoda – the varaha embellished with Lord Vishnu in his boar avatar. These became known as the Old Pagodas when the New Pagodas, the Madras Pagodas of lighter weight and less value, came into currency. The Madras Pagoda was valued at about three pence at the time.

Besides Madras pagodas, the Fort St. George mint struck fanams (panam) first in gold alloys and then, from 1688 in silver. In 1692, the mint was permitted to mint the silver rupees of the Moguls. The public were also encouraged to take their own gold to the mint and have it converted into Madras or Arcot (Mogul) currency for a mintage fee. The standard weight, however, was expected to be strictly observed.

new mint was built in the Fort in 1665, then rebuilt in 1727 in the northwest corner of the Fort, by what became know as the Mint Bastion. In 1742, a second mint was established in Chintadripet. The same year, the Fort mint was permitted to strike the Arcot rupee and Arcot coins of lower denominations. In 1792, the Chintadripet mint was moved to the Fort and the two mints became the gold and silver mints, minting star pagodas, which were replacing the Madras Pagodas, Arcot rupees and Madras and Arcot fanams and doodoos.

It was to be 1815 before rupees, annas and pies were introduced the Madras pagoda being valued at Rs. 3.5. With currency volumes increasing thereafter, it was decided to move the mint to more spacious premised and when the gun-powder factory at the northern end of George Town fell into disuse, it was converted into the new mint by a Dr. Bannister on government orders. It went into production in 1842 and remained busy till the era of the Raj decided that central minting was necessary. The Madras mint closed down in 1869 to make way for the government press in the same premises. But Mint Street – once Thanga Salai – remains a Madras name.