1 Cash - Christian IV BA/HVS kas

Issued by the Danish East India Company for use at Tranquebar (Trankebar), the small trading settlement on the Coromandel Coast acquired by Denmark in 1620. These lead cash pieces circulated alongside local Indian copper issues in a market where small denomination coinage was chronically undersupplied. The Danish Asiatic trade never achieved the scale of the Dutch or English equivalents, and Tranquebar itself changed hands repeatedly under financial and military pressure before finally being sold to the British East India Company in 1845.

Lead was a practical concession to local convention — not a cost-cutting measure — as small cash-type coins in lead and copper were already familiar to Tamil and Telugu-speaking traders in the region.