1 Cash - Zhong Shi

Bangka Island's tin cash were not issued by a sovereign government but by the Dutch colonial mining administration, which needed small-denomination tokens to pay and supply the Chinese contract laborers working the island's extensive tin mines. Bangka was among the most productive tin sources in the world during the 18th and 19th centuries, and the local economy ran almost entirely on the metal being extracted from the ground — making it a practical inevitability that the coinage itself would be struck from the same material.