2 Testerns - Elizabeth I

The East India Company received its royal charter on December 31, 1600, and almost immediately confronted a practical problem: trade with Asia required silver acceptable to Indian and Southeast Asian merchants who had little interest in English coinage. These pieces were struck specifically for export, not domestic circulation, drawing on sterling silver at a moment when the Crown was simultaneously trying to police bullion outflows from England.

The Spink reference places this among the rarest of the Company's earliest monetary experiments. Very few survive, and those that do rarely show significant wear — they moved in merchant accounts rather than through hands.