Indonesia's early aluminum coinage was issued under acute postcolonial fiscal pressure — the new republic lacked both the industrial infrastructure and the foreign exchange reserves to mint in anything more expensive. The 10 Sen series was produced at the Utrecht Mint in the Netherlands, an arrangement that carried obvious political awkwardness given the Dutch-Indonesian Union had only just been dissolved in 1956 after years of bitter dispute over sovereignty.
Indonesia's early aluminum coinage was issued under acute postcolonial fiscal pressure — the new republic lacked both the industrial infrastructure and the foreign exchange reserves to mint in anything more expensive. The 10 Sen series was produced at the Utrecht Mint in the Netherlands, an arrangement that carried obvious political awkwardness given the Dutch-Indonesian Union had only just been dissolved in 1956 after years of bitter dispute over sovereignty.