Watch List notes:

India, Delhi Sultanate. Sher Shah Suri. 1486-1545. AR rupee (28 mm, 11.17 g). Shergarh, AH 947 (1540 AD). G&G D801. Scarce.

Sher Shah Suri was an Afghan adventurer who succeeded in toppling the nascent Mughal empire and forcing Humayun to flee into exile. He was a brilliant administrator and his reforms in his brief 5-year reign laid the basis of Akbar the Great's achievements that followed.It was Sher Shah who introduced the rupee to replace the earlier tanka, bringing in a denomination that is still in use across South Asia. In fact, if Sher Shah had not been accidentally killed in a gunpowder explosion during a siege in May 1545, the great Mughals may never have come back to power at all.Nicely struck on a large flan, with the sultan's name Si Ser Sahi (Sri Sher Shah) clearly written in Devanagari too.