Netherlands Indies guilder
The Netherlands Indies guilder was the unit of account of the Dutch East Indies from 1602 under the United East India Company, following Dutch practice first adopted in the 15th century. A variety of Dutch, Spanish and Asian coins were in official and common usage. After the collapse of the VOC at the end of the 18th century, control of the islands reverted to the Dutch government, which issued silver 'Netherlands Indies' guilder and fractional silver and copper coins until Indonesian independence in 1945.
History
Prior to European contact
A number of forms of payment were found throughout the archipelago prior to European contact.Stamped gold and silver masa and kupang date from the 9th century, with later coins substantially debased, with 13th-century silver masa containing only copper, while gold coins were very light. It is possible that this reflected a move towards the use of lower value coins for every day transactions.
The rise of the Majapahit empire from the 13th century saw the masa disappear from use, replaced with the 'picis', or copper Chinese cash in the 14th century, which had been produced in vast numbers in China, and were kept in strings of 100 or 1000 coins. 14th century documentation shows the cash coins in widespread use, which spread to nearby islands including Sumatra.
Trade with China was banned by China for substantial portions of the next two centuries, and so lighter copies were made by local Chinese merchants. In the Islamic Sultanate of Palembang, these coins eventually became the 'pitis', a holed coin with Arabic writing.
16th century
European trade with the Indies began in the 16th century, with the Spanish eight real coin, or Spanish Dollar, the predominant world trade coin, used in Portuguese expeditions to the East to bring valuable spices back to Europe. Chinese and other Asian traders were also using silver coins including the Indian Rupee and Eight Real.The low-valued picis had wildly fluctuating value, but were worth around 10,000 lead picis to the piece of eight around the turn of the 17th century. Due to lack of supply of the genuine Chinese copper picis, they were worth six times as much as the lead coin by this time.
17th century—United East India Company take control
Trade companies in two provinces of the Netherlands began trading expeditions to the Indies in the late 16th century, and were authorised to issue their own trade coins for use on these expeditions: the United Amsterdam Company in 1601 and the Middelburg Company in 1602. Each issued 8 Real coins, while the United Amsterdam Company also issued 4, 2, 1, and Real coins.The 1601 coin was the first trade dollar issued by any European power in the East, but the unfamiliar coins were rejected in favour of the well-known 8 Real coins produced by Spain and its possessions, which were accepted all over the world. The Spanish coins remained the preferred large silver coin in the Indies until the 19th century.
In 1602, the United East India Company was formed from six trading companies in the Netherlands, and granted a trade monopoly over the Indies. In 1619 the company established its capital at Jakarta, which it called Batavia. It gradually spread its influence over Java, and established control over Sumatra in 1667 by treaty.
The company's directors, sitting in Amsterdam, adopted a unit of account system, based on a notional guilder, divided into 20 notional stuivers. This followed Dutch practice, and reflected the tendency for coins to get debased over time, and hence the nominal value of a given weight of silver to increase. The rijksdaalder, with 25.7 g actual silver weight, was declared the Dutch national coin in 1606, and valued at 47 stuivers, a rate increased to 48 stuivers in 1608. The stuiver and two stuiver coins had a slightly lower silver weight than implied by this conversion rate, reflecting their utility as small change. The weight of silver equal to one guilder unit was derived from the value in stuivers of the weight of the rijksdaalder coin. This accounting practice correctly reflected inflation over time. However the VOC's accounting guilder of 20 stuivers was fixed at the 1608 valuation of the 25.7g rijksdaalder at 48 stuiver.
In practice, the rijksdaalder proved less desirable than the better-known Spanish 8 Real coin, and as the rijksdaalder contained more silver, they disappeared from circulation according to Gresham's law. As a result, the VOC shipped the Spanish coin in large quantities, and it was the standard large coin of the Indies, used in official transactions, and given the same 48 stuiver value as the rijksdaalder.
Small change intended for local use did not need to be accepted outside the Indies, so Dutch silver 1 stuiver, 2 stuiver, and 6 stuiver coins were imported. The less valuable lead picis cash coins continued to circulate. The materials for these were supplied by the Dutch. However they had no official exchange value. With 411 tons of lead supplied between 1633 and 1640, at least a billion coins were produced in that period alone. Due to oversupply, their production then became unprofitable, but resumed later. These coins remained in demand until the mid-18th century, and production only ended in 1763.
VOC officials discovered that large silver coins were being removed from circulation and exported, something they believed reflected a higher price for silver in Asia. As a result, in 1640 the rijksdaalder and the Spanish 8 Real were both increased in value to 60 stuiver coins, thereby making it unprofitable to exchange small change for large coins.
In 1644 the VOC instructed a Chinese resident of Batavia named Conjok to mint copper coinage in denominations of a half and quarter stuiver to address the shortage of low denomination money. The VOC administrators in the Netherlands ordered this minting to cease after only five weeks, so not many coins were minted. The first VOC silver coins were issued in 1645 by Dutch goldsmith Jan Ferman along with Conjok, in denominations of 48, 24 and 12 stuivers, otherwise known as the Batavian Crown, Half and Quarter Crown. These were made from Japanese silver bars as an emergency measure to address the lack of large silver coins due to the locals selling the large Dutch silver coins to Chinese traders for a profit. The Crown weighed of a Dutch lion thaler, which was then worth 48 stuivers. Due to counterfeiting, the coins were withdrawn two years later, in 1647. These coins, the first to bear the VOC monogram, and the last until 1724, are now very scarce.
The Directors of the VOC in Amsterdam disapproved of the increased valuation of the rijksdaalder and 8 Real coins, and it was ended in 1651. The Batavian administrators continued to argue for it, and in 1655 the 25% devaluation was restored. However Amsterdam ordered that the small coins be devalued by 25%, and large coins by 20%. In the Indies the Dutch stuiver coin was thus worth 1.25 stuiver, and the rijksdaalder and Eight Real 60 stuiver.
To subdivide the Indies stuiver, in 1658 an official issue of the lari known as Tangs—'fish hook' coins made of copper —was attempted. A tang was equal to a quarter 'Indies stuiver', with five equalling the Dutch stuiver coin. The tang were to be officially stamped to prevent clipping, but this was unsuccessful as the copper proved too hard to work. A revised order authorising production in pewter followed in 1660. As only one specimen is known to survive, it seems that this was not a successful issue.
Batavian officials in 1658 restored the ratio of 60:1 between stuiver coin and the Eight Real coin, introducing the concept of 'light' and 'heavy' stuiver. The Eight Real was worth sixty 'heavy stuivers' and the stuiver coin one 'heavy stuiver', while in 'light' stuivers, things were valued 25% higher, so a stuiver coin was worth 1.25 'light' stuivers, and the rijksdaalder was worth 75 'light' stuivers.
These concepts were essentially a misdirection of the Amsterdam administration designed to enable the Batavian officials to make private profits at the VOC's expense. VOC officials manipulated the system, paying 'light' money in Batavia and receiving heavy in Amsterdam, at the expense of the VOC. The system caused great confusion, but 'light' money was not abolished until 1742 locally, and in 1766 in the VOC accounts.
With thirty 2-stuiver coins containing more silver than an 8 Real, the two-stuiver coins soon disappeared from circulation, for melting at a profit.
In addition to the 8 Real, a number of other large coins were in use. These included the Dutch silver ducat, the Dutch lion thaler and cross thaler and the ducaton. Gold coinage included the Dutch gold ducat, as well as the Japanese koban gold plaque and ichi-bu gold coin—all of which were at various times in the late 17th century subject to countermarking, a measure designed to keep genuine, high-quality coins in use, but which were all ended as the countermarks could also be falsified.
In the last decade of the 17th century, the Indian silver rupee was introduced to the Indies by the Dutch, who initially counterstamped the coins, and valued them at 30 stuivers, an excessive value given the silver weight of only 11.44 grams, and led to large numbers of rupees being imported. Other late 17th century countermarking efforts included a 1686 initiative to counterstamp imported ducatons, rijksdaalders and half ducatons. This measure ended in 1692. Another counterstamping measure was of the silver stuiver coins of Zeeland, which were counterstamped from 1687 for a number of years.
1724—introduction of the duit
The VOC wished to introduce copper coinage, replacing the picis, and began to import Dutch duit in 1724 from the province of Holland. These were valued at 4 duit to the heavy stuiver, twice the value that they had in the Netherlands. This created an obvious arbitrage opportunity, and the coins were withdrawn in 1725.Although two of the Dutch provinces had granted their VOC Companies permission to mint coins in the name of Batavia in 1624, the Dutch Parliament withheld its assent to this, and no such VOC coinage was issued until 1726, when there were two different classes of duits: those circulating in the Netherlands, valued at stuiver, and those circulating in the Indies at stuiver. By declaring that only duits bearing the 'VOC' monogram would be legal tender in the Indies, the VOC could keep its monopoly on these coins, though the high value of duits relative to their intrinsic worth did mean that duit forgeries were common in the Indies.
Holland and Zeeland issued the first VOC copper duit coins, bearing their respective arms, and those two provinces along with West Friesland also issued VOC ducatons. The Dutch Parliament objected to the ducatons, arguing that the designs were unapproved, and threatened a fine of 1,000 ducatons per ducaton issued. The provinces backed down, and all specimens were melted down.
A new design for VOC ducatons was then submitted and assent given, with the first VOC ducatons issued in 1728 by, and bearing the arms of, each of the six provinces that constituted the companies of the VOC.
VOC ducatons were minted in many of the years between 1728 and 1751 by one or more of these six provinces. Several million coins were minted in total. Far more VOC duits were minted than that. As with the ducaton, they were modelled on the Dutch duits that were the first to be shipped to the Indies, but unlike the 1726 ducatons, they were not recalled, and thus the first VOC duits date from that year.
Duits were issued by Utrecht, Holland, Gelderland, Zeeland, and West Friesland. Each coin bore the crowned arms of the respective province on the obverse, and the VOC monogram, date and the respective mintmarks; minor changes were made to the design of the duits over the period of issue. Silver and gold presentation strikes exist.
Half duit coins, featuring the same designs but with half the weight, were much less popular, and were minted only by Utrecht, Holland, Gelderland, Zeeland, and West Friesland. No double duits were minted at all.
Along with the imported duits, in 1764, 1765 and 1783, duits were produced under authority of the Company in Java, with one side inscribed 'DUYT JAVAS ', and the other the same text in Arabic. These coins lacked both VOC monogram and arms.
The duit gradually became more popular over the 18th century. Ten million were sent to the Indies in the 1770s alone. They circulated alongside the picis for most of the 18th century, and by 1800 the duit had superseded the inconvenient picis in Java.
During the second half of the 18th century, old clipped silver stuivers were valued at 4 duits, and new ones at 5 duits.