Tin coinage dominated small-denomination exchange across the Malay peninsula for centuries, fed directly by the region's extraordinary alluvial tin deposits — the same geological wealth that would later make Perak and Selangor targets of British intervention in the 1870s. The pitis circulated at the lowest rung of everyday trade, changing hands for single portions of rice or betel, and was produced by dozens of petty states and individual sultanates with no coordinating authority and no fixed standard.
Attribution of these pieces is notoriously difficult; many sultanates used near-identical dies, and the soft metal corrodes readily, obscuring what little distinguishing detail was struck in the first place.
Tin coinage dominated small-denomination exchange across the Malay peninsula for centuries, fed directly by the region's extraordinary alluvial tin deposits — the same geological wealth that would later make Perak and Selangor targets of British intervention in the 1870s. The pitis circulated at the lowest rung of everyday trade, changing hands for single portions of rice or betel, and was produced by dozens of petty states and individual sultanates with no coordinating authority and no fixed standard.
Attribution of these pieces is notoriously difficult; many sultanates used near-identical dies, and the soft metal corrodes readily, obscuring what little distinguishing detail was struck in the first place.