ABSTRACT
The successful restoration of a gold standard and the maintenance of the new silver currency in circulation depended on the price of silver remaining below 5s 6d per standard or sterling ounce. While Great Britain struggled to maintain a gold standard with some difficulty the East India Company, on the other side of the world, was moving inexorably towards a silver standard. In Aden, annexed by Britain in 1839 and administered by the East India Company and the Government of India successively, the Indian rupee, with its fractional subsidiary pieces, became the local monetary unit. The enterprise of Indian traders in East Africa was reflected in the adoption by the Sultan of Zanzibar of a coinage system based on 192 pysa to the Indian rupee, and the striking of copper quarter annas and silver rials equal to two Indian rupees in 1882.
