1 Cash - Frederik III

Tranquebar's lead cash coinage occupies an odd corner of Danish colonial history — the denomination was borrowed directly from the local Tamil monetary system, which the Danish East India Company had no practical choice but to adopt after establishing their Coromandel Coast factory at Tharangambadi in 1620. Lead was the accepted metal for this fractional unit throughout the region, not a cost-cutting compromise. Frederik III never set foot in Asia; his name on these pieces reflects little more than administrative formality from Copenhagen, some 8,000 kilometers removed from wherever these were actually struck and spent.