China - Tibet. TIBET: AR tangka dkarpo sa rpa, ND (1953), Y-31, Second Monk issue, a lovely mint state example! PCGS graded MS63. Formerly it was assumed that these tangkas were distributed to monks on behalf of the 14th Dalai Lama in the late 1940s. The Tibetans referred to this Tangka as Tangka dkarpo sa rpa (new white tangka) in order to distinguish it from the normal ga-den tangkas. This coin circulated for some time at the value of 5 srang, which shows the high inflation rate which was prevailing in Tibet in the 20th Century. In the 19th Century 6½ tangkas were equivalent to 1 srang which corresponded to slightly more than 37 grams of silver. Taking the circulating value of this Monk tangka as a base, 1 srang was equal to about 33½ tangkas in 1953-54.
