1 Ducat

The VOC ducat was struck not as trade currency in the modern sense but to satisfy payroll obligations — the Company's Asian operations required hard specie for soldier wages and local procurement, and Amsterdam's bankers would not accept anything less than fine gold. The Dutch Republic's own ducats served as the template, but VOC-issue pieces circulated in a commercial network stretching from Batavia to Nagasaki.

KM#171.1 designates the Utrecht mint variant, distinguished by the mint mark rather than any substantive design difference. By the mid-1740s the Company was already mortgaged against its future — dividend payments were being funded by borrowing — but the gold kept flowing to the East regardless.