Palembang pitis

The Palembang pitis was a currency issued by the Palembang Sultanate from the year 1659 under the reign of Sultan Abdulrrahman Khaifatul Mukminin Sayidul Imam[1] until the sultanate was dissolved by the Dutch in 1823 and the territory was fully integrated into the Dutch East Indies.

Some examples of Palembang pitis.

Official issues had to be approved by the sultan of Palembang, Most pitis had an inscription like al Sultan fi balad Palembang sanat [date] (the sultan of Palembang year [date]) written in Malay but none actually featured the name of the ruling sultan meaning that pitis coins can only be dated using the Islamic calendar (which began in 622 AD with Mohammad’s Hijra using "AH" ["Anno Hegirae"/"After Hijra"] dates).[2][3] However in many cases the production was outsourced to the local Chinese population, who did not use Arabic script but Traditional Chinese characters and also used Chinese production technology to manufacture pitis coins. Generally speaking most Palembang pitis were made from tin alloyed with lead (except for a single bronze issue), the pitis coins of Palembang could be divided into two categories based on the fact if they were holed or not, the holed ones were known as pitis teboh and the coins without a hole were known as pitis buntu (or pitis bountou). The pitis teboh were strung together like Chinese cash coins which had already been circulating in the archipelago while the non-holed coins were packaged in leaves to form a box known as a kupat. The value of the pitis was based on both the Spanish dollar and the VOC duiten. The pitis teboh were strung together in strings of 500 coins on rotan and a string was referred to as a chuchub, while the pitis buntu were packaged per 250 coins in a kupat. During the colonial era a kupat was worth 20 duiten or ​¹⁄₁₆ Spanish dollar while a chuchub was worth 40 duiten or ​¹⁄₈ Spanish dollar.[4]

The value of the units of the pitis was also dependent on the actual size of the coins, with the standard size of the pitis teboh being around fifteen millimeters. However as most pitis coins were either in a box of leaves or strung together very tightly most traders couldn't see the coins and their value was very much dependent on an act of trust.[4] This explains why some unofficially produced pitis coins were very crude (and even why some were actually made without features), this is as small low value coins within strings or boxes of leaves would not have been examined too carefully by those handling them.[2]