1/2 Gold Rupee

The VOC's gold rupee coinage for its Ceylon and Coromandel Coast operations was struck at a time when the Company was in terminal financial decline — by the 1780s it was effectively insolvent, kept alive by Dutch state loans while simultaneously fighting the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War. The half rupee denomination served trade with Mughal-standard markets where the rupee weight was the accepted unit, requiring the VOC to produce coins calibrated to local monetary expectations rather than Dutch ones.

The VOC charter lapsed on 31 December 1799, and the Batavian Republic nationalized its remaining assets the following day.