1 Pagoda

The VOC struck pagodas not as a colonial imposition but out of necessity — indigenous merchants along the Coromandel Coast refused to accept European coin types for trade settlement, and the Company had little choice but to mint denominations already trusted in local markets. The pagoda as a unit predated Dutch involvement in the region by centuries, circulating widely across South Indian temple economies and long-distance textile trades.

KM#22 was produced at the VOC's Tuticorin and Negapatnam facilities during a period when the Company's finances were deteriorating badly — the same decades that would ultimately lead to the VOC's bankruptcy and dissolution in 1799.