City's numismatic has coins dating back to pre-Independence era
"My grandfather passed it on to my father, my father passed it to me, and now I'm preparing my 15 year old son to take over the legacy", muses 44 year old Munish Chhabra who is the proud owner of ancient coins as part of his heirloom. Living in Peer Muchalla, Zirakpur he says he wasn't aware of the more than 1000 coins that were sitting at his house.
"We were living in Sector-10, Panchkula when my father died in 1994. He did start to show me a few of the coins before he left the world. Like, 8-10 coins and their history. After that, when we checked out his possession in his favorite trunk, we found out that he had a jackpot of more than 1,000 coins about which when we researched, we got to know that they were pre-Independence era ones. I don't have much of the information sadly, because my father didn't deliver me the exact information, but I do developed an interest while viewing my heritage", Chhabra reprimands.
Having a lineage and the proof of the earlier times is a dream that only a few can have. Munish is one of those people who got lucky on having such great heritage to his name. His father Prof. Hazara Singh Chhabra was a respected professor in PGGC, Sector 46 and even had Mathematics book in Haryana Board syllabus to his name. Chhabra further expresses his love for his family, "We are one of the families who had our homes in Peshawar, Pakistan before the Independence. After, 1947, my ancestors had to leave his home and come back to India in which they had left their fortunes like gold coins which were buried under the ground. But, he did manage to get his coin collection along with him which date back to 1835 which were packed in medicine foils to conserve them."
Explaining his coin collection, Munish Chhabra states, "I have coins that are more than 180 years old passed on from generations. So, to maintain their original form, I don't even clean the copper, nickel and brass stone coins as it would bring down their ancient value. Even though I have no interest to sell any coin in the near future, I once got the Anna of 1940 evaluated which came out to be of 1.60 lakhs, so I was quite proud to boast my collection. Once, I also searched on Ebay where I saw a man selling a coin of 1900's worth Rs 2.50 Cr that really surprised me but I have not evaluated my whole collection till now, though. My personal coin collection includes the coins from 80's and 90's. Of course, now my son, Chinmaya is also collecting the coins of the 21st century to pass it on to his generations."