2 Rixdollars Trial Strike

Ceylon's coinage in this period was administered by the British East India Company following their takeover of the Dutch VOC territories in 1796. Trial strikes of this denomination were produced in London as the Company worked to rationalize a monetary system inherited from the Dutch, which had layered rixdollars, fanam, and stivers into a thoroughly tangled local currency. The rixdollar itself was a Dutch colonial unit, and the British debated for years whether to retain it or replace it with a sterling-based system — a question not fully resolved until the introduction of the Ceylon rupee in 1872.

The Pn4 designation confirms this piece never entered circulation. Proof trials of this type are known in very small numbers.