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MAY, 1913.]
THE OBSOLETE MALAY TIN CURRENCY
125
THE OBSOLETE TIN CURRENCY AND MONEY OF THE FEDERATED MALAY STATES.
BY SIR R. C. TEMPLE, BART.
APPENDIX I. Correspondence.69 No. I.
Mr. W. W. Skeat to Sir R. Temple. 13 March 1904.
The series is a most interesting one, as it includes a specimen of the Perak-Selanger "crocodile coin," the name of which (sa-buaya) is still used in reckoning small sums (-2 cents). It is shaped like a crocodile with the tail slightly curved upwards, is made of tin and is several inches long. There are also several specimens of the fowl coin, also of tin, and cast in the shape of a cock. I am trying to get a specimen of the snake coin of Kedah to complete this series. There are also specimens of the solid tin coins [ingots used as coins] of Selangor and Perak, some of which weigh several pounds, and are copied in a similarly-shaped token series of Pahang, hollowed out to fit on to each other like hats.
I secured also two small gold coins from the East Coast with bulls on them, apparently not yet recorded, but in shape and size resembling some Sumatran coins; and finally a large and complete series of the tin cash of the various East Coast States, some of which have inscriptions in a script that I have not yet been able to get deciphered. A list of these coins was made out by Mr. [now Prof.] Rapson of the British Museum, who told me that the series was not in the
Museum.
I should like to add that Prof. Ridgeway and I worked right through them, constructing tables of the various State currencies.
Some of the cash show symbols that reappear in old Javanese coins, notably a sort of "wheel ornament," and the unusual script may have some bearing on the same problem.
Besides the coins I have some "cash trees" (Mal. pokok-pitis) which show the method of making the cash.
No. II.
Mr. W. W. Skeat to Sir R. Temple. 10 June 1904.
The [tin] currency is all obsolete. Most of it has been so for two or three generations. It was only with the greatest labour that I could evolve order out of the chaos, or indeed find out anything about the ratio that the different coins bore to each other. All this is quite new, as is also the entire history of the development of the so-called "hat coin," whose shape is taken ultimately from the trade blocks of tin still in use. All this has never been touched before.
The crocodile coin took quite five years before I could run it to earth, and the cock coins are little if at all commoner. There was no proof till I got it that these things were ever used as currency at all. Even the Curator of the Perak Museum, from which State they came, told me that he had no idea of their use, and thought they were only toys. Both these and the 'snake' coin of Kedah-in fact the whole set-are surely entirely sui generis, and of the highest interest.
No III.
Mr. W. W. Skeat to Sir R. Temple. 30 June 1904.
1. I believe that there are two sizes of crocodile' coins, as there certainly are of the 'cocks.' I am trying hard to get further light from the Peninsula, without success so far.
09 This contains original information on the subject gathered on the spot.
