1/2 Pice for Malabar Coast

The English East India Company's Malabar Coast issues occupied an awkward administrative space — struck not by any Crown authority but by a commercial enterprise operating its own currency across the Malabar pepper and textile trades. The Company's coinage rights on this coast derived from a patchwork of local concessions rather than a single founding charter, which explains the extended and poorly documented production window spanning over seven decades.

Pridmore 313 is among the more elusive of the Malabar series. The low weight reflects local denominational conventions rather than Company-wide standards.