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Saviour of ancient Telugu coins
Collecting old coins is not an easy task and one should have great patience to do it. East Godavari-based Kandula Venkatesh has been collecting ancient Telugu coins for more than 30 years. Recently he showcased his coins at the World Telugu Conferen
Collecting old coins is not an easy task and one should have great patience to do it. East Godavari-based Kandula Venkatesh has been collecting ancient Telugu coins for more than 30 years. Recently he showcased his coins at the World Telugu Conference.
Venkatesh Kandula, a numismatist, who has collected more than 1800 rare ancient Telugu coins shares his journey
Speaking with The Hans India, Venkatesh explained how he begins his journey as a numismatist.
“My grandfather Goli Sathyaraju collected ancient coins for more than 40 years and I was attracted to do the same by watching him. I started this work since I was a kid and until today I collected more than 1800 coins in 30 years. When I begin the work, I decided to collect Telugu related coins, stamps, and notes to keep them as a reference for generations to come,” said Venkatesh Kandula.
Apart from Numismatism, Venkatesh is working as an Engineering Manager at Deccan Fine Chemicals. “I have travelled all over India to collect coins related to Telugu Kings, Kingdoms and people.
I have the oldest coin called ‘Asmaka Janapadam’ which is 600 BC old. I also have coins like ‘Gobadha’, ‘Narana’, ‘Sirakama’, ‘Sirivaya’, ‘Samagopa’, ‘Narayana’ and more. I collected stamps related to Telugu people as well,” adds Venkatesh who has rare Telugu coins used at the time of Nizam’s rule.
Asking about his experience at World Telugu Conference, he said “After noticing my rare collections, Mamidi Harikrishna, Director for Department of Language and Culture asked me to exhibit my works at the WTC summit at Ravindra Bharathi.
In the summit, many people came to me and enquired about coins history and appreciated my work. It was a great experience for me to show my work at the prestigious event like WTC,”
Saving old coins is an arduous task and when asked about it, he said “We have to spend a lot of money to save these coins to keep them in the real shape. In the market there are many products available to keep these coins safe and most of these tools are sold in Chennai,”
He concluded, “I have been to many places to collect coins where local people thought I came to steal valuable things from their land and threatened me to leave the place. I am also planning to release a book on Telugu coins,”
By VSR
