1 Pice for Malabar Coast

The Bombay Presidency's Malabar Coast issues occupy an awkward corner of British Indian numismatic history — struck not by the Crown but by the East India Company during a period when the Company was still functioning as a trading enterprise rather than a governing power. The Malabar Coast came under Company control incrementally following the Anglo-Mysore Wars, and local coinage was essential for paying laborers and conducting petty trade in pepper and textile markets where indigenous currency systems were already entrenched.

The seventy-four year span attributed to KM#150 almost certainly reflects a single die type struck across multiple undated batches rather than continuous annual production.