rupees past

[Allen W Thrasher]

Matthew,

I sent off a request to our Business Reference's email because in addition to assisting you I wanted to find out if there was indeed a general historical reference book on historical currency exchange rates.  In the meantime I found what may be a useful subject heading or two:

Money--India--history
Foreign exchange--India--history

On LOC's catalog the second doesn't get any books the first doesn't hit, but you should try both (or Boolean OR) on your own library's database in case it has something on the subjects we don't have.

Your institution will have most of these, I am sure.   

You can also search on the same headings with the omission of India.  

Also, I think I may have found the mother of reference books on the subject, Jurgen Schneider et al, Wahrungen der Welt, Frankfurt: F. Steiner, 1991- (not yet complete), LCCN 92149206. (Umlauts omitted.)  Bd. 4 is on Asian and Austral rates in the 19th c. and Bd. 5 on the same in the 20th.  

Finally, you might try, with no guarantees on my part, Derek Howard Alcroft, Exchange rate regimes of the twentieth century, 1998, LCCN 98021063.  If you look at the record for it on the LOC catalog <catalog.loc.gov> you will find a link to a long and appreciative review on H-Asia.  It seems to focus on the period after the 20s rather and have little on the pre-WWI era.  But it has lots of tables.

I found Alcroft via the additional subject heading Foreign exchange rates--History.  A search on Foreign exchange rates--India (and its subdivisions) doesn't get much that sounds to me to serve your purpose, unless perhaps there is an article in S. Murty, ed., "India's international trade and rupee exchange rate."  If it has tables the catalog record ought to say so, but perhaps what the record calls "ill." are really tables.

I have not been able to examine any of these.

Allen




Allen W. Thrasher, Ph.D., Senior Reference Librarian
South Asia Team, Asian Division
Library of Congress, Jefferson Building 150
101 Independence Ave., S.E.
Washington, DC 20540-4810
tel. 202-707-3732; fax 202-707-1724; athr at loc.gov
The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the Library of Congress.