Issued for the Danish trading settlement at Tranquebar (Tharangambadi) on the Coromandel Coast, this lead cash was produced for local small-denomination exchange in a colony Denmark held, improbably, from 1620 until 1845. Lead coinage of this type was a pragmatic concession to local monetary custom — copper and silver were too valuable for the fractional transactions the settlement's markets demanded.
The HO/PO privy marks distinguish the issuing authority on pieces that otherwise circulated alongside Mughal and local South Indian coinage. Christian IV never visited Tranquebar; the colony was administered through the Danish East India Company, which lost its charter in 1650 and left the settlement in Crown hands.
Issued for the Danish trading settlement at Tranquebar (Tharangambadi) on the Coromandel Coast, this lead cash was produced for local small-denomination exchange in a colony Denmark held, improbably, from 1620 until 1845. Lead coinage of this type was a pragmatic concession to local monetary custom — copper and silver were too valuable for the fractional transactions the settlement's markets demanded.
The HO/PO privy marks distinguish the issuing authority on pieces that otherwise circulated alongside Mughal and local South Indian coinage. Christian IV never visited Tranquebar; the colony was administered through the Danish East India Company, which lost its charter in 1650 and left the settlement in Crown hands.