Pune’s Narendra Tole turns a Hobby into the city’s First Coin Museum
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Narendra Tole was unlike other kids his age—he saved his pocket money, rather than spent it. And while other kids were busy bullying other kids and knocking about on bicycles, Tole collected rare coins.
However, today, unlike most other numismatists, Tole’s passion is embodied in a museum he set up in Pune. Inaugurated in November last year, the Yashlaxmi Numismatic Museum is the city’s first and only coin museum. On display is this 65-year-old’s collection of over 60,000 currency notes and 25,000 coins from 220 countries. “I would collect foreign coins from hotels and airports. I would even request foreign tourists to part with their money to add to my collection when I was a student,” he laughs.
“Exchanging coins with other enthusiasts who had currency I did not possess has also helped, apart from family and friends who have always humoured me,” beams Tole, whose pride and joy is an 801-year-old fanam that dates back to the Vijaynagar era. “It is made of gold and weighs just 0.4 grams. The heaviest coin I own is a silver Australian Kookaburra that weighs 1 kilo,” he reveals, as if sharing a secret.
Whereas some of Tole’s recent Indian coins have come from the Reserve Bank of India and others were coin sets he purchased from the governments of various countries, other rare pieces were not easy to come by. For instance, since work commitments keep him rooted in India, he sometimes dispatches a trusted aide abroad to procure rare proof sets. “It’s expensive all right but when you really, really want something, you will go to any lengths to get it,” says Tole.
Now hunting down rare and elusive coins is par for the course for the numismatist, whose oldest pieces date back to the 4th and 6th centuries BC. The European influence in India in his collection is represented in Portuguese, Dutch, French and Greek coins. Indian coins of various dynasties and empires have scripts ranging from Urdu, Farsi, Modi, Arabic, Ardhamagadhi and Brahmi. He also has a handful of uncirculated coins from the Republic of India. “Just as parents can never differentiate between their kids, I can’t either. Every coin and note in my collection is special to me,” says Tole with ‘parental’ pride. Bubbling with enthusiasm, he adds, “I also have weighing scales for metals used to weigh coins, and magnifying glasses to examine minute details in currency notes.”
But there’s a flipside to collecting coins—losing them. Brow furrowed, a woeful Tole says he has no clue to what happened to a unique set of 36 gold notes from Belize in Central America that was a part of his precious collection. “I don’t know who took it or how it got lost.”
Back to his pet project and this Puneite is all smiles again. He says he named his museum ‘Yashlaxmi’ after his parents. “My father was ‘Yashwant’ and my mother ‘Laxmi’. I know their blessings are with me. Laxmi also means ‘wealth’, and coins and currency are, after all, Laxmi.” The 1,000-sq ft museum is open from 5 pm to 8 pm every day except Mondays and charges no entry fee. The exhibits are self-explanatory, each one bearing a description of the coin and its unique place in history. For those who want to lean more, there’s Shashank Maity, a guide who is happy to oblige. But setting it was no mean feat. After pulling out his collection from cupboards, where Tole had stored it, it took him months to separate, classify and label each exhibit. After that, he got custom-made furniture to display his collection in a systematic yet tasteful manner. Installing a security system came next and, with his heart in his mouth, he finally turned over his precious collection to the care of cameras, monitors and security guards.
“I got the idea of setting up a museum while touring various cities to exhibit my collection. This was cumbersome and fraught with many risks. So I decided that bringing visitors to my collection would be easier than taking it to them,” Tole explains, adding that it took only seven months to give his dream concrete shape. Intent on encouraging school children to cultivate hobbies, Tole arranges special trips to his coin museum. “I manage a transport business and it is easy to arrange field trips. I bought a Maruti Omni especially to ferry children from schools to my museum. I hope that, some day, numismatics can be introduced as a subject or a separate stream in colleges and universities as it holds a wealth of knowledge for students.”
And his efforts are already paying off. The museum receives 15-20 visitors a day on weekdays and more on weekends. “From waada [mansion] to the home of coins…Narendra Tole has brought laurels to the city of Pune,” reads a comment in the visitors’ book at the museum’s door. A 13-year-old wrote that he had no interest in coins but ever since his dad “dragged him to the museum on a Sunday evening”, he decided to become a numismatist. Passionate as Tole is about his pet preoccupation, he has time for family and friends, apart from running his business. “It is a matter of pride to see a man with a minimum education and who once did every possible job to earn a livelihood, have his very own museum. And although he is so passionate about his coins, he is always there for us when we need him. He is the rock of our family,” says Tole’s wife Aruna. As for his daughter, Namita, is learning the ropes to carry her father’s legacy forward. “People who are geniuses tend to be a little obsessive and extreme. So, as a child, I used to watch my father drown himself in his collection. He used to fuss over small little things like not getting the right size glass frame for his unique coins and notes. Now, when I look back, it was all worth it. This museum is his baby."
SOURCE : Khursheed Dinshaw - http://www.harmonyindia.org/hportal/VirtualPageView.jsp?page_id=16395
Narendra Tole was unlike other kids his age—he saved his pocket money, rather than spent it. And while other kids were busy bullying other kids and knocking about on bicycles, Tole collected rare coins.
However, today, unlike most other numismatists, Tole’s passion is embodied in a museum he set up in Pune. Inaugurated in November last year, the Yashlaxmi Numismatic Museum is the city’s first and only coin museum. On display is this 65-year-old’s collection of over 60,000 currency notes and 25,000 coins from 220 countries. “I would collect foreign coins from hotels and airports. I would even request foreign tourists to part with their money to add to my collection when I was a student,” he laughs.
“Exchanging coins with other enthusiasts who had currency I did not possess has also helped, apart from family and friends who have always humoured me,” beams Tole, whose pride and joy is an 801-year-old fanam that dates back to the Vijaynagar era. “It is made of gold and weighs just 0.4 grams. The heaviest coin I own is a silver Australian Kookaburra that weighs 1 kilo,” he reveals, as if sharing a secret.
Whereas some of Tole’s recent Indian coins have come from the Reserve Bank of India and others were coin sets he purchased from the governments of various countries, other rare pieces were not easy to come by. For instance, since work commitments keep him rooted in India, he sometimes dispatches a trusted aide abroad to procure rare proof sets. “It’s expensive all right but when you really, really want something, you will go to any lengths to get it,” says Tole.
Now hunting down rare and elusive coins is par for the course for the numismatist, whose oldest pieces date back to the 4th and 6th centuries BC. The European influence in India in his collection is represented in Portuguese, Dutch, French and Greek coins. Indian coins of various dynasties and empires have scripts ranging from Urdu, Farsi, Modi, Arabic, Ardhamagadhi and Brahmi. He also has a handful of uncirculated coins from the Republic of India. “Just as parents can never differentiate between their kids, I can’t either. Every coin and note in my collection is special to me,” says Tole with ‘parental’ pride. Bubbling with enthusiasm, he adds, “I also have weighing scales for metals used to weigh coins, and magnifying glasses to examine minute details in currency notes.”
But there’s a flipside to collecting coins—losing them. Brow furrowed, a woeful Tole says he has no clue to what happened to a unique set of 36 gold notes from Belize in Central America that was a part of his precious collection. “I don’t know who took it or how it got lost.”
Back to his pet project and this Puneite is all smiles again. He says he named his museum ‘Yashlaxmi’ after his parents. “My father was ‘Yashwant’ and my mother ‘Laxmi’. I know their blessings are with me. Laxmi also means ‘wealth’, and coins and currency are, after all, Laxmi.” The 1,000-sq ft museum is open from 5 pm to 8 pm every day except Mondays and charges no entry fee. The exhibits are self-explanatory, each one bearing a description of the coin and its unique place in history. For those who want to lean more, there’s Shashank Maity, a guide who is happy to oblige. But setting it was no mean feat. After pulling out his collection from cupboards, where Tole had stored it, it took him months to separate, classify and label each exhibit. After that, he got custom-made furniture to display his collection in a systematic yet tasteful manner. Installing a security system came next and, with his heart in his mouth, he finally turned over his precious collection to the care of cameras, monitors and security guards.
“I got the idea of setting up a museum while touring various cities to exhibit my collection. This was cumbersome and fraught with many risks. So I decided that bringing visitors to my collection would be easier than taking it to them,” Tole explains, adding that it took only seven months to give his dream concrete shape. Intent on encouraging school children to cultivate hobbies, Tole arranges special trips to his coin museum. “I manage a transport business and it is easy to arrange field trips. I bought a Maruti Omni especially to ferry children from schools to my museum. I hope that, some day, numismatics can be introduced as a subject or a separate stream in colleges and universities as it holds a wealth of knowledge for students.”
And his efforts are already paying off. The museum receives 15-20 visitors a day on weekdays and more on weekends. “From waada [mansion] to the home of coins…Narendra Tole has brought laurels to the city of Pune,” reads a comment in the visitors’ book at the museum’s door. A 13-year-old wrote that he had no interest in coins but ever since his dad “dragged him to the museum on a Sunday evening”, he decided to become a numismatist. Passionate as Tole is about his pet preoccupation, he has time for family and friends, apart from running his business. “It is a matter of pride to see a man with a minimum education and who once did every possible job to earn a livelihood, have his very own museum. And although he is so passionate about his coins, he is always there for us when we need him. He is the rock of our family,” says Tole’s wife Aruna. As for his daughter, Namita, is learning the ropes to carry her father’s legacy forward. “People who are geniuses tend to be a little obsessive and extreme. So, as a child, I used to watch my father drown himself in his collection. He used to fuss over small little things like not getting the right size glass frame for his unique coins and notes. Now, when I look back, it was all worth it. This museum is his baby."
SOURCE : Khursheed Dinshaw - http://www.harmonyindia.org/hportal/VirtualPageView.jsp?page_id=16395
