The Keping was a fractional copper denomination struck for circulation in the Straits Settlements, which the British East India Company administered following its acquisition of Penang in 1786. The 1804 issue came from the Soho Mint in Birmingham under Matthew Boulton's operation — the same facility responsible for driving industrialized coin production into British colonial territories. The thick flan variety is distinguished from its thinner counterpart by die and planchet preparation, not merely by incidental weight variation, making Singh's cataloguing of the two as separate types well-founded.
The Keping was a fractional copper denomination struck for circulation in the Straits Settlements, which the British East India Company administered following its acquisition of Penang in 1786. The 1804 issue came from the Soho Mint in Birmingham under Matthew Boulton's operation — the same facility responsible for driving industrialized coin production into British colonial territories. The thick flan variety is distinguished from its thinner counterpart by die and planchet preparation, not merely by incidental weight variation, making Singh's cataloguing of the two as separate types well-founded.