During 1997 and 1998 India contracted a few foreign mints to make additional quantities of 1 and 2 Rupee coins. One Rupee coins were made for India by Mexico City mint and Kremnica mint, in 1997 and 1998 respectively. Two Rupee coins were made for India by a South Korean mint and the Pretoria mint, in 1997 to 1998 and 1998 respectively. To get an idea of the quantities involved in this, I have it from the Pretoria mint that 150 million 2 Rupee coins were made by them dated 1998. They planned to put in a tender for a 1999 quantity too. All of these foreign made pieces have a definite means of mint identification, which it seems must be a stipulation set by the RBI. The mint marks used for this always appear below the date. Foreign mints have only ever made standard design coins.

So the pieces produced by the Mexico City mint have the small "o" above large "M" mint mark, as has been used on probably every coinage issue ever produced there.

The pieces made by the Kremnica mint have the encircled "MK" as a mint mark, just as used on the current coins of Slovakia.

The South Korean made pieces have a small five-pointed star below the last digit of the date. This is similar to how a small five-pointed star mint mark appeared below the first digit of the date on some 50 Paise coins of 1985 which were also made in South Korea. That was during a previous period that India used foreign contractors for coins and blanks, though seemingly this was to a smaller extent. A point to note about this previous period of shortage though, was that some 1985 1 Rupee coins bore the "H" mint mark of the Birmingham mint. It would seem this is the only such mint marked coinage issue of that mint, made for any country, in the last 27 years. The "H" mint mark is only used by the Birmingham mint on their medallic pieces these days. The South Korean mint believed to be responsible for these 1997 and 1998 dated 2 Rupee coins is the Kyongsan Printing and Minting complex, in the city of Kyongsan, near to the metropolitan city of Taegu. This, it seems, is Soth Korea’s main mint - there maybe others though. It may also be so that the South Korea made 50 Paise coins of 1985 were from a different mint in South Korea. The reason that this may be so is, as mentioned earlier, the star below the Soth Korean 2 Rupee coins have the small five-pointed star mint mark below the last digit of the date, where as these 50 Paise coins had their mint mark below the first digit of the date. (A five-pointed star under the middle of the date, on either of these types, is the mint mark for the Hyderabad mint - hence the need to be below one end of the date.)

Finally the pieces produced by the South African mint in Pretoria i.e. the 2 Rupees of 1998, have an "M" in oval mint mark. This mint mark is based on this mint's modern logo. No other recent coins of this mint have had a mint mark of any kind, in fact this mint has confirmed my suspicion that this mint mark was used and seemingly brought into being at the request of the RBI. Another odd thing about the Pretoria made 2 Rupees coins of 1998 is that these pieces are true eleven-sided coins. These Pretoria made pieces have been struck on sided blanks, where as 2 Rupees coins made elsewhere have all been made from round blanks with eleven incomplete edges being applied during strike.

(Some "foreign" mint marks will be illustrated here later.)