Catalog
Pitis Kuching - Sultan Kamaluddin
| Issuer | Sultanate of Brunei |
|---|---|
| Year | 1710-1740 |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Technique | Cast |
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| Obverse description | Within a raised octagonal border, a stylised feline creature (kuching, or cat) is depicted in profile facing right, its body rendered in a naive but vigorous low-relief style typical of early Bruneian tin coinage. A small circular perforation pierces the centre of the flan. The creature's head is turned to face the viewer with a clearly defined circular eye, its haunches and tail curling around the central hole. The entire design is contained within a flat, recessed field bounded by a plain raised rim following the octagonal outline of the coin. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | The reverse field bears a multi-line Arabic inscription in raised relief, distributed across the octagonal flan and arranged in horizontal registers around the central circular perforation. The calligraphic legends, rendered in a regional Jawi-influenced Arabic script, identify the sultan by name and royal epithet. A plain raised rim follows the octagonal periphery, and a dot ornament is visible in the upper facet separating the border from the inscription field. |
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| Additional information |
The "Kuching" pitis — kuching meaning cat in Malay — belongs to a poorly documented series of tin-lead small change that circulated through Brunei's trading networks during the early eighteenth century, when the sultanate's political authority had contracted sharply following decades of succession disputes and the loss of territory to European and Sulu pressures. Sultan Kamaluddin's reign itself remains imprecisely dated in Western scholarship, which is why the attribution carries a thirty-year window rather than firm regnal years.
Tin-lead pitis were essentially fiduciary tokens — their intrinsic value negligible, their acceptance dependent entirely on local confidence in the issuing court.