Talk:Italian Somaliland rupia

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The discussion in [1] is somewhat confusing. It implies

• The Maria Theresa thaler was (officially) set at 1½ Italian lire in 1905.
• The bese was then introduced in 1909 at a rate of 1/150 thaler or 1/64 rupee.
• The bese was then switched to being 1/100 rupia in 1910.
• The exchange rate was fixed at 1 rupia = 1.68 lire until 1925.
• The final exchange rate was 8 rupia = 1 lira in 1926.

Krause Mischler and Pick agree that the rupia was decimal but do not give any exchange rates. None of the exchange rates can be arrived at by considering the silver contents of the various coins. The cross rate of 15 rupia to the British pound is what was used for the Indian rupee until 1920, indicating that the Italians weren't interested in silver.
What are we to put in this article?
Dove1950 21:15, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

I think it's good to have at least more than 1 source when dealing with ambiguous data. For example, rupee was about half a dollar/thaler before 1920, so that 64:150 makes a lot of sense. However, the Latin Monetary Union broke down after 1920, so things are a little unclear then. (1 rupia = 1.68 lire) and (8 rupia = 1 lira) are two drastically different figures, and that's the reason why I didn't want to put any ratio in there. So, if you can find another source or to make an convincing argument, then..... --Chochopk 07:11, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

I haven't found another source yet but I have worked out 1.68. It's based on the gold standard. The lira was worth 9/31 g gold, whilst the rupee was worth 113/15 grains of gold. The ratio between these two is 1.68, meaning that the Italians were thinking purely in terms of gold, even though the rupia was a silver coin.
Dove1950 17:50, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

The following page [2] gives the exchange rate as 1 rupia = 8 lire, i.e., the opposite of that given by [3]. It seems to me that the initial rate, when both the Italian lira and Indian rupee were on the gold standard, was 1.68:1, as discussed above. When Italy and India went of the gold standard, the lira fell much more than the Indian rupee and presumably also fell relative to the rupia, giving rise to the exchange rate of 8:1 in 1925. [4] also indicates that the currency was decimal from the start.
Dove1950 14:32, 17 April 2006 (UTC)