 "Alok K Goyal")
One of civil engineer Shivraj Athane's proudest family possessions in Bengaluru is his father's extensive collection of coins, and Athane is always on the lookout for treasures that can be added to this pool. It was during this search that he spotted a coin featuring Venkateswara, an avatar of Vishnu. A silver coin, it had a diamond and gold printing and Swarovski crystals. He immediately reached out to Alok Kumar Goyal, the man who designs and also makes such unusual coins - and stamps - available in India.
Kolkata-based Goyal recently made news for designing a five-rupee commemorative coin and a silk postal cover featuring Mother Teresa to mark her canonisation; these were released by India Post.
Until six years ago, Goyal spent all his energy in building his software consultancy business. As a hobby, he collected coins and stamps. An unexpected phone call from Switzerland turned his passion into a business.
The call was from the Coin Investment Trust, Liechtenstein, a company that has dealt in unusual coins since 1992. "According to their records, I had all the coins they had issued in the last 10 years," says Goyal. When he accepted their invitation and visited their facility to learn about modern coinage, Goyal was asked to look into the possibility of introducing "modern" and "designer" coins in India.
According to their research, while Indians and Chinese collectors dominated the hobby of collecting coins, the Chinese were buying the bulk of the coins. "They told me that India was a 'sleeping giant'," recalls Goyal.
On returning to India, Goyal started exploring import laws but found all the doors shut because "no one knew about such a venture." For the next two years, he shuffled between departments and wrote innumerable letters elaborating how he proposed to import coins and sell them. When it finally happened, Goyal remembers being both excited and nervous. "It was a totally unknown field; there was no one to help me in India."
By then, Goyal had signed a contract with the Coin Investment Trust to market their coins, but he had also laid out a condition: the trust had to help him issue coins that showcased Indian themes. Until then, special coins only had European and Chinese themes.
Goyal's AG Impex is involved in the design, manufacture and sale of custom-made coins and stamps. For this, he collaborates with nine mints that control 78 countries.
Soon after establishing himself as a player in the international market, Goyal announced the first exclusive coin designed by him for the Indian market. Minted in Germany and issued by the government of Ivory Coast, West Africa, this was a pure silver coin featuring an image of Ganesha using peepal leaves, with a Swarovski ruby as the god's tikka. Inscribed on it was the Vakratunda Mahakaya, the Sanskrit shloka that pays salutations to the elephant-god. The coin came in a mouse-shaped case. Later, when he designed a coin featuring Venkateswara, he also made a temple-shaped case that lit up with an LED light when opened.
These coins can be pre-booked for Rs 8,001 against their price of Rs 11,000. And, each coin is numbered in gold on a dried peepal leaf.
The Venkateswara coin Athane bought was priced at Rs 25,111 when it was issued by the African nation of Palau in 2014. It is currently being circulated at Rs 51,000. Those who collect such coins also look upon them as investment.
"Till a few years ago, I would have a tough time filing income tax returns since I don't have any assets or investments except in coins and stamps," says Goyal.
As a child, Goyal says he would look forward to Diwali - not for the festivities or the sweets and crackers, but because his father would get commemorative coins issued by the Reserve Bank of India. (Commemorative coins are not meant for circulation). "I was very fascinated with the coins that came in unusual denominations like Rs 20, Rs 50 or Rs 100, but they were always kept in the locker because they were made of silver," he recalls.
By 1980, as the price of silver shot up and such coins couldn't be sold on face value, Goyal's father stopped buying them. But Goyal didn't want to stop. So in 1981, when the Reserve Bank of India introduced a coin with 92.5 per cent silver (the previous ones had 50 per cent) to commemorate the International Year of Child, he bought five of them in a transaction that was his first major investment. He bought the Rs 100 coins for Rs 130 each.
"I had used my pocket money for this. When I reached home, my father slapped me hard," recollects Goyal, laughing. By the end of the last decade, each of these coins was valued at Rs 4 lakh. Even after a drop in the valuations of Indian coins, each of these is easily worth over a lakh.
After he became a software consultant and began travelling the world, Goyal started collecting everything he could get lay hands on. A number of mints in Europe were, by the 1980s, feeding a trend of unusual coins: from those that came in different colours to the ones that talked or had a fragrance.
In stamps, real gold ink and coloured crystals have become a distinctive feature of his work now.
In the three years since he started, the countries that issue stamps designed by him make up an unusual list: Cook Islands, São Tome and Príncipe, Niue Islands and Maldives. From a stamp on Durga to one with Maharaja Agrasen (crystals in both, of course), to a coin on Shirdi Sai Baba and Adinath, his designs have begun to extend over a gamut of Indian deities.
Designing and minting coins that feature gods call for special care. Goyal recalls the time when during the final stages of making the Ganesha coin, the mint flipped the direction of the god's trunk for stylistic reasons. "I had to tell them they couldn't do that."
It's the collectors abroad that buy a majority of these religious coins.
An ongoing series he is working on includes 33 medals inspired by Mahatma Gandhi's freedom struggle. The first 12 of these have already been released.
Since collectibles such as stamps and coins aren't exactly available in neighbourhood malls, enthusiasts turn to the many online portals that offer these. But as with everything else, buying valuables online can be tricky. "A friend had ordered a coin online. What he got instead was a piece of lead covered with gold paint," says Athane. He adds that the confidence Goyal inspires is what makes him popular among collectors. That Goyal is also a collector has gone a long way in building a customer base of 3,800 collectors from across the world.
There was a time when Goyal's treasures filled a few drawers. His collection then started taking up space in the almirahs of the Goyal household, and their clothes had to be stored under the bed. Goyal knows he has come a long way since then, but with the market in India still "waking up", he realises the journey is far from over.
