Netherlands Indian gulden

The gulden was the unit of account of the Dutch East Indies from 1602 under the United East India Company (Dutch: Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie; VOC), following Dutch practice first adopted in the 15th century (gulden coins were not minted in the Netherlands between 1558 and 1681 and none circulated in the Indies until a century later). A variety of Dutch, Spanish and Asian coins were in official and common usage. After the collapse of the VOC at the end of the 18th century, control of the islands reverted to the Dutch government, which issued silver 'Netherlands Indies' gulden and fractional silver and copper coins until Indonesian independence in 1945.

A number of forms of payment were found throughout the archipelago prior to European contact.

Stamped gold and silver masa and kupang date from the 9th century, with later coins substantially debased, with 13th-century silver masa containing only copper, while gold coins were very light. It is possible that this reflected a move towards the use of lower value coins for every day transactions.

The rise of the Majapahit empire from the 13th century saw the masa disappear from use, replaced with the 'picis', or copper Chinese cash in the 14th century, which had been produced in vast numbers in China, and were kept in strings of 100 or 1000 coins. 14th century documentation shows the cash coins in widespread use, which spread to nearby islands including Sumatra (although not the Islamic Aceh, which minted its own Arabic gold mas coins).

Trade with China was banned by China for substantial portions of the next two centuries, and so lighter copies were made by local Chinese merchants (out of locally available lead or tin rather than the more desirable copper, which needed to come from China). In the Islamic Sultanate of Palembang, these coins eventually (from the 17th century) became the 'pitis', a holed coin with Arabic writing.

European trade with the Indies began in the 16th century, with the Spanish eight real coin, or Spanish Dollar, the predominant world trade coin, used in Portuguese expeditions to the East to bring valuable spices back to Europe. Chinese and other Asian traders were also using silver coins including the Indian Rupee and Eight Real.

The low-valued picis had wildly fluctuating value, but were worth around 10,000 lead picis to the piece of eight around the turn of the 17th century. Due to lack of supply of the genuine Chinese copper picis, they were worth six times as much as the lead coin by this time.

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