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Tampang Tin hat
| Issuer | Sultanate of Pahang (Islamic states of Malaysia) |
|---|---|
| Year | 1820-1878 |
| Type | Standard circulation coin |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Square cast tin tampang of hat-money form, presenting a deeply recessed central field enclosed within a stepped, raised square border. The sunken central panel bears four Chinese characters in traditional regular script (楷書), reading 成利公司 (Cheng Li Company), arranged in two columns of two characters each. The surrounding raised border carries a Jawi (Arabic-script) legend reading ملك العدل (The Just Sultan) along the sides, accompanied by the Hijri date ١٢٣٥ (1235 AH). A small square hole pierces the upper margin of the raised border, characteristic of this type. The overall surface exhibits the irregular texture and casting flaws typical of hand-cast Malay tin currency of the period. |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Chinese (traditional, regular script), Jawi |
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| Additional information |
Pahang's tampang coinage circulated during a period when the sultanate's tin trade was substantial enough to warrant its own monetary medium, but the form itself is older than the sultanate's formal political structures — hat-shaped tin currency had been cast across the Malay peninsula for centuries before any standardized Islamic administration formalized it. The specific weight tolerance on these pieces varied considerably between castings, which tells you something about how exchange actually worked: by rough equivalence, not precision.
Production ended as British commercial pressure and imported coinage eroded indigenous monetary forms in the 1870s.