The Palembang pitis (also spelled pitjis) was a currency issued by the

Palembang Sultanate The Sultanate of Palembang Darussalam (كسلطانن ڤلامبڠ دارالسلام) is a sultanate in Indonesia whose capital was the city of Palembang in the southern part of the Indonesian island of Sumatra. It was proclaimed in 1659 by ''Sus ...

from the 1600s until 1825 when the sultanate was dissolved and its territory taken over by the colonial government of the

Dutch East Indies The Dutch East Indies, also known as the Netherlands East Indies ( nl, Nederlands(ch)-Indië; ), was a Dutch colony consisting of what is now Indonesia. It was formed from the nationalised trading posts of the Dutch East India Company, which ...

. The currency consisted of low denomination

tin Tin is a chemical element with the symbol Sn (from la, stannum) and atomic number 50. Tin is a silvery-coloured metal. Tin is soft enough to be cut with little force and a bar of tin can be bent by hand with little effort. When bent, t ...

alloy coins which were mostly traded in bulk. Due to the lack of a centralized mint, the pitis often had inconsistent manufacture and were frequently counterfeited.

History

Palembang, like

Banten Banten ( id, Banten; Sundanese: , romanized ''Banten'') is the westernmost province on the island of Java, Indonesia. Its capital city is Serang. The province borders West Java and the Special Capital Region of Jakarta on the east, the Java Se ...

, had become an independent sultanate when

Demak Sultanate The Demak Sultanate (کسلطانن دمق) was a Javanese Muslim state located on Java's north coast in Indonesia, at the site of the present-day city of Demak. A port fief to the Hindu-Buddhist Majapahit kingdom thought to have been founded in ...

declined following the death of

Sultan Trenggana Sultan (; ar, سلطان ', ) is a position with several historical meanings. Originally, it was an Arabic abstract noun meaning "strength", "authority", "rulership", derived from the verbal noun ', meaning "authority" or "power". Later, it c ...

in 1546. Thereafter from the 1560s to 1620s, Palembang became an active trade participant in two key products of the region,

pepper Pepper or peppers may refer to: Food and spice * Piperaceae or the pepper family, a large family of flowering plant ** Black pepper * ''Capsicum'' or pepper, a genus of flowering plants in the nightshade family Solanaceae ** Bell pepper ** Chili ...

and

. During the course of this trade, coins from various local sultanates circulated in Palembang, namely Banten, Siak,

Kampar Kampar may refer to: Indonesia *Kampar Regency, Riau Province, eastern Sumatra *Kampar River, a river in the same province Malaysia *Kampar District, Perak *Kampar, Perak, a town in Kampar District *Kampar River, Malaysia Kampar may refer to: Ind ...

and

Jambi Jambi is a province of Indonesia. It is located on the east coast of central Sumatra and spans to the Barisan Mountains in the west. Its capital and largest city is Jambi. The province has a land area of 50,160.05 km2, and a sea area of 3, ...

, in addition to Chinese cash coins which had already been circulating in the archipelago. Palembang's earliest coinage date from this period, which were tin imitation of Chinese cash with

Chinese characters Chinese characters () are logograms developed for the writing of Chinese. In addition, they have been adapted to write other East Asian languages, and remain a key component of the Japanese writing system where they are known as ''kanji' ...

phonetically rendering " pangeran" or "sultan" into ''panglân'' (邦闌) and ''sútan'' (史丹) respectively, dated between 1600 and 1658. This was followed by an issue with Arabic Jawi inscription reading alamat sulṭan'' (علامت سلطان), dated between 1658 and 1710. The second half of the 17th century saw increasing monopoly of Dutch East Indies Company (VOC) in the pepper and tin trade. This severely undermined the regional trading network and undermined the prosperity of local sultanates. Local coins became scarce in Palembang, with the exception of coins minted at Palembang itself. Beside the pitis, the early 1700s also saw the release of VOC duiten and

Spanish dollar The Spanish dollar, also known as the piece of eight ( es, Real de a ocho, , , or ), is a silver coin of approximately diameter worth eight Spanish reales. It was minted in the Spanish Empire following a monetary reform in 1497 with content ...

, which also circulated in Palembang. Around 1710, tin deposits were discovered on

Bangka Island Bangka is an island lying east of Sumatra, Indonesia. It is administered under the province of the Bangka Belitung Islands, being one of its namesakes alongside the smaller island of Belitung across the Gaspar Strait. The 9th largest island in In ...

, which was part of Palembang Sultanate at the time. The discovery led to a tin surplus which was traded in form of ingots by the sultanate and provided materials for low denomination coinage in mass quantity. The eighteenth century coinage of Palembang Sultanate consisted of two separate coin series. The first is the sultan's small-size coins bearing Jawi inscriptions, and the second is larger-size coins bearing Chinese inscription. The Chinese style coins, which were minted for the Chinese mining communities on Bangka are commonly thought to only circulate in Bangka. However, Bangka at the time had close ties with the administration of Palembang City and Chinese style coins appear to have also been minted in the city as well. It is very likely that the Chinese style coins circulated side by side with the sultan's coins within the core areas of Palembang. In 1812, Palembang lost its source of tin when British forces occupied Bangka Island. The island went on to become a nominal Dutch possession after the

Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1814 The Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1814 (also known as the Convention of London; nl, Verdrag van Londen) was signed by the United Kingdom and the Netherlands in London on 13 August 1814. The treaty restored most of the territories in Java that B ...

and was formally handed over to the Dutch in 1816. Around 1820s, Sultan Mahmud Badaruddin II rose up against the Dutch and was defeated by the Dutch general

Hendrik Merkus de Kock Hendrik Merkus, Baron de Kock (25 May 1779 – 12 April 1845) was a Dutch general and nobleman who served in the Batavian Navy as Lieutenant Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies from 1826 to 1830. He also was Minister of the Interior of t ...

in 1821. The Dutch divested Mahmud of his powers and exiled him to Ternate in the same year. In 1825, the Dutch took Palembang under direct Dutch administration. The last dated Palembang pitis was from 1804, and presumably further production ceased by 1825.

Manufacture

Palembang's output of coins had been fairly restrained before 1710, but tin surplus expanded the state's coinage. Pitis were

cast Cast may refer to: Music * Cast (band), an English alternative rock band * Cast (Mexican band), a progressive Mexican rock band * The Cast, a Scottish musical duo: Mairi Campbell and Dave Francis * ''Cast'', a 2012 album by Trespassers William * ...

in the same way as Chinese cash coins: molten tin was first cast into molds which resulted in "coin trees." Individual coins were then broken off and polished to round the edges, although stem remnants from unthorough polishing are commonly seen in Palembang pitis. Finally, a die is used to struck the coin with the appropriate inscription. Official coinage issued by the Sultan formed only one part of the total coinage circulating in Palembang, as the manufacture of counterfeit coinage became a major industry. Counterfeit coins could have been made by almost anyone with access to Palembang's tin supply during the period of tin surplus. There are reports of severe punishment against counterfeiters, but as the quality of official pitis themselves were often inconsistent due to lack of centralized manufacture, it may be difficult to ascertain whether a particular sample is official or unauthorized issue. Common inconsistencies include size, weight, and inscriptions (which were especially prone of deformation in early types).

Types

All currency of Palembang pitis consisted of coins made from

lead Lead is a chemical element with the symbol Pb (from the Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a heavy metal that is denser than most common materials. Lead is soft and malleable, and also has a relatively low melting point. When freshly cu ...

alloy, except for a single

copper Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkis ...

issue. Each type contain inscription on the obverse with blank reverse. Most contain the Arabic phrase في بلد ڤلمبڠ ''fi bilad Palembang'' ("in the land of Palembang") rendered in Jawi script, and some included year of mintage using

Hijri era The Hijri year ( ar, سَنة هِجْريّة) or era ( ''at-taqwīm al-hijrī'') is the era used in the Islamic lunar calendar. It begins its count from the Islamic New Year in which Muhammad and his followers migrated from Mecca to Yathrib ...

or ''Anno Hegirae'' (AH). Coins could be divided into two categories: coins without a hole called pitis buntu and coins with a hole called pitis teboh, which included Chinese cash imitations. Disregarding variants, some of the known types produced by the official Palembang mint are as following:

Pitis Buntu

Pitis Teboh

Exchange Rate

Palembang pitis served as low denomination currency valued and exchanged in bulks with the VOC duiten and

. ''Buntu'' and ''teboh'' were worth the same and they only differed in their group units. Pitis ''buntu'' were grouped into parcels wrapped in leaves. A parcel with 250 pieces is known as a ''kupat'' (كوفات) which has the value of one ''kejer'' equivalent to 20 duiten and dollar. Pitis ''teboh'' were grouped into strings with a piece of

rattan Rattan, also spelled ratan, is the name for roughly 600 species of Old World climbing palms belonging to subfamily Calamoideae. The greatest diversity of rattan palm species and genera are in the closed-canopy old-growth tropical forests of ...