Pitis coinage circulated across the Malay sultanates as the lowest denomination in everyday trade, primarily used in bazaar transactions where silver was far too valuable to be practical. Tin was the obvious choice — the peninsula produced it in abundance, and local smelting operations made small-denomination tin casting relatively straightforward for individual sultanates to manage without centralized mint infrastructure.
Pitis coinage circulated across the Malay sultanates as the lowest denomination in everyday trade, primarily used in bazaar transactions where silver was far too valuable to be practical. Tin was the obvious choice — the peninsula produced it in abundance, and local smelting operations made small-denomination tin casting relatively straightforward for individual sultanates to manage without centralized mint infrastructure.