Catalog
See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration!
or register with email
Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!
Pitis Unta - Sultan Al Adil Malik Al Dzahir
| Issuer | Brunei |
|---|---|
| Year | 1700-1868 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Tin |
| Weight | Log in to see details |
| Diameter | Log in to see details |
| Thickness | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Log in to see details |
| Technique | Log in to see details |
| Orientation | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | A camel passant facing left occupies the central field, surrounded by floral scroll ornaments above and below the figure. The entire design is enclosed within a beaded border. The rendering is characteristic of traditional Bruneian tin casting, with the camel motif serving as a distinctive identifier of this pitis type. |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Log in to see details |
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | The central field features a four-petalled flower set within an interlocking four-cloud cartouche, a design element common to Southeast Asian Islamic coinage. The Arabic honorific legend of the sultan's title is arranged within the cloud-scroll border, rendered in a stylized script typical of Bruneian cast tin coinage of the 18th and 19th centuries. |
| Reverse script | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Edge | Log in to see details |
| Mint | Log in to see details |
| Mintage | Log in to see details |
| Additional information |
Brunei's tin pitis circulated through a sultanate economy built largely on pepper and sago trade, where small-denomination coinage functioned primarily in local bazaar transactions rather than in the large-scale entrepôt commerce that dominated the coast. The title Al Adil Malik Al Dzahir — the Just, the Sovereign, the Manifest — was an honorific applied across multiple sultans during this span, which is precisely why Singh's attribution runs across nearly two centuries without anchoring to a single reign.
Tin was the practical choice for low-value issues; Brunei had no significant silver supply of its own. The casting quality on these pieces varies considerably across the type's long production run.