3702) A Rare bronze half-seer grain token from India issued during British India, without a hole was issued during the Great Famine which took place in the Deccan Plateau fronm 1876 to 1878:

 3702) A Rare bronze half-seer grain token from India issued during British India, without a hole was issued during the Great Famine which took place in the Deccan Plateau fronm 1876 to 1878:

This is a rare uniface grain token from the Great Famine in India in 1876, which is a bronze half-seer Relief token from British India, without a hole, was struck for use during two years of famine affecting southern India in the 1870s.

The Great Famine of 1876 to 1878 struck India under the British Raj. It began in 1876 following an intense drought that resulted in crop failure in the Deccan Plateau.

The famine affected south and southwestern India — the British-administered presidencies of Madras and Bombay, and the princely states of Mysore and Hyderabad — for a period of two years.

Relief tokens with and without a hole for the half-seer denomination are known, and all are apparently very rare.

A “seer” (or “sihr”) a traditional unit of mass and volume used in large parts of Asia prior to the middle of the 20th century, was officially defined by the Standards of Weights and Measures Act (No. 89 of 1956, amended in 1960 and 1964) as being exactly equal to 1.25 kilograms (2.8 pounds), but there were variances in accepted weights and depending on location.

The type of Coin is classified as KM-Tn3 in the Standard Catalog of World Coins by Chester Krause and Clifford Mishler, and as Pridmore-34 in The Coins of the British Commonwealth of Nations to the end of the reign of George VI, 1952. Part 4: India. Volume 2: East India Company 1835-58, Imperial period 1858-1947, by Fred Pridmore.

It is however indicated that perhaps as few as two examples of the token with the hole exist. 

The sale of this token in an auction underscores a market reality - tokens almost universally sell for far less than comparable coin rarities, regardless of nation of origin.

The Token has been graded Mint State 63 brown by Professional Coin Grading Service (PCGS).