Punch marked coins were mostly made of:

The correct answer is Silver.

Punch marked coins

• It is a type of early coinage in India, dating to between about the 6th and 2nd centuries BC.
• The first coins in India may have been minted around the 6th century BC by the Mahajanpadas of the Indo-Gangetic plain.
• The coins of this period were punch-marked coins called Puranas, Karshapanas, or Pana.
• Several of these coins had a similar symbol. For example, Saurashtra had a humped bull Dakshin Panchala had a Swastika, others like Magadha had several symbols.
• Punched Marked coins were made of silver, had a standard weight but were irregular in shape.
• The irregular shape was made by cutting up silver bars and then making the correct weight by cutting the edges of the coin.
• These coins lack any inscriptions written in contemporary languages and were always struck in silver.
• These unique characters make early Indian coins very different from their contemporaries in Greece.
• Many historians believe that the concept of coinage was introduced by the Greeks in India. But unlike Indian punch-marked coins, Greek coins had inscriptions that were round in shape, were stamped on both sides, and were minted using silver, electrum, and gold too.
• Now historians are certain that the concept of coinage was invented in India independent of foreign influence which imparted unique characteristics to these coins.
• These coins are mentioned in Manu, Panini, and Buddhist Jataka stories and lasted three centuries longer in the south than in the north.
• After the fall of the Maurya Empire and the increased influence of the Indo-Greeks,punch-marked coins were replaced by cast die struck coins as visible in the Post-Mauryan period.