1/2 Cash - Christian IV

The Danish East India Company operated its Indian headquarters at Tranquebar, a small coastal settlement on the Coromandel Coast acquired from the Nayak of Tanjore in 1620. This lead piece was struck for local trade use there, where fractional copper and lead coinages were the everyday currency of the bazaar. The Danish crown had little direct control over the coinage — the Company managed its own mint at Tranquebar largely autonomously.

KM#48 in lead is among the more elusive of the Tranquebar fractions; the soft metal survives poorly.