1978 - Sri Lanka - 1 Rupee
JR - Right Shoulder Straight

A rare commemorative one rupee cupro-nickel coin that was issued by Central Bank of Ceylon on 4th February 1978 for circulation on the installation of J. R. Jayewardene as the First Executive President of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka.

SPECIFICATIONS
DenominationRupees One
Alloycupro-nickel
Diameter25.4 mm
Weight7.13 gms
Thickness1.9 mm
ShapeRound
EdgeSecurity 1
Die-Axis
Special Die2,600
MintRoyal,Wales
1978_Rs1_obverse 1978_Rs1_reverse
KM# 144

Obverse : The Armorial Ensign of Sri Lanka within circle of dashes along periphery with raised rim.
Reverse : An proile image of the President His Excellency J. R. Jayewardene facing left in the center with the date 1978.02.04 of inaugaration below. රුපියලයි in Sinhala, on top, and ஒரு ரூபாய் in Thamil on left, and ONE RUPEE on right. The country name ශ්‍රී ලංකා (Sri Lanka) in Sinhala only, centered at bottom. All within circle of dashes along periphery with raised rim.

1978_JR_Rs1_reverse It will be interesting to note that the minting of this coin was undertaken at very short notice, in fact a matter of only three weeks was available for the designing, preparation of tools, minting of the coins and delivery of at least a small quantity for issue on the appointed date. To circumvent these difficulties the Royal Mint adopted a special tool method. This consignment was brought to Sri Lanka in the early hours of 1st February 1978 by T. M. U. Sallay (Senior Assistant Superintendent of Currency and author of book "Sri Lanka Currency of Recent Times 1938-1985") who had been flown earlier to London in this connection. More... The effigy on these 2600 special coins is slightly different from those on the balance of the order. The most noticeable difference is the shoulder line of the President's image. In this rare coin shown above it is comparatively straight, while in the standard coin shown on right it curves upwards.

According to Sallay, who I had the pleasure of meeting in Colombo in Dec 1999 the choice of denomination was based on the availability at that time of 1 rupee blanks at the royal mint. The obverse was to be the same, and the artwork for the reverse was done independently by two artists. One of the original dies was used to produce the small initial consignment and got worn out in the process, and the other slightly different die replicated to make the coin dies used to mint the rest of the 2 Million coins.
The special issue of 2600 coins is not a Proof as listed sometime ago in Krause. It is significantly rare since most of this 2600 released into circulation got mixed with the 2-million before it was realised to be different from the rest. Most known are from those kept by collectors on the day of issue. A few have been reported as having been found from circulation.

If all went into random circulation the 1978 RSS JR coins is 0.0026/2 or 1 in 769 of JR coins which among large Rs1 coins 2/(202.518+182) (1972-1994,1996-2004) or one in 192 or less as many have been taken out if circulation by Collectors, Collector Proboth estimates 1 in 5000 JR coins that are 1 in 250 of large size 1 Rupee coins,

Included in that small consignment were 30 minted as gold frosted Proof coin.

The coin was scanned at 300 dpi and the images are displayed at 254 dpi. The special rare JRJ coin was a very kind gift to me from Thun Sallay.