Island Of Sultana Merchant Token

A recent acquisition I thought I would share - a merchant token from the Island of Sultana.

To overcome the shortage of currency in the newly founded settlement of Singapore, the merchants in Singapore issued 1 keping tokens in copper, imitating the Arms of the East India Company with year date 1804 and the words "ISLAND OF SUMATRA". These tokens were issued between between 1828 - 1836. These tokens came to be widely accepted in the neighboring Malay States, parts of the Nertherland East Indies and Borneo.

The Dutch East India Company had settlements in Sumatra, Borneo, Celebes and Java. The Dutch authorities were alarmed at the vast flow of the Singapore tokens bearing the name "Island of Sumatra" in territories under their control , side by side with the Dutch Doits. Vide Proclaimation dated at Batavia 15th October 1835, the Dutch declared the Singapore merchant token "Island of Sumatra" illegal and commenced to confiscate all such tokens in areas under their jurisdiction.

To overcome this problem, the Singapore Merchants changed the name of their tokens to a fictitious name "Island of SULTANA" in 1835/36. Thus legally it could not be said that these tokens were for circulation in areas under Dutch control.

In 1844, the Court of Directors in London ordered the Governor of the Straits Settlements (Penang, Malacca and Singapore) to stop the production of all imitation Singapore Merchant Tokens. These tokens were replaced with the East India Company ¼ Cent, ½ Cent and 1 Cent coinage in 1845.

Information quoted from http://coinsofmalaysia.blogspot.co....ous.html?m=1

Island of Sultana
1804
1 Keping