Java 1785 rupee

Steve Album sale 55, lot 3565

This specimen was lot 3565 in Steve Album Auction 55 (Santa Rosa, CA, May 2026), where it sold for $312. The catalog description^[1] noted, "JAVA: AR rupee, 1785, United East India Company (VOC) issue, stylized Arabic inscriptions ila jazirah / jawa al-kabir ("for the great island of Java") // dirham min / kampani / walandi ("dirham of the Dutch Company"), reverse with uncertain diamond-shaped countermark, light hairlines, NGC graded XF details. The countermark looks quite different from Chinese chopmarks and is instead similar to the ones applied by local sultanates on circulating foreign silver." This type was struck 1764-67, 1783-88. Java, the chief island of Indonesia, was occupied by the British 1811-16. After the Congress of Vienna in 1815, Indonesia was returned to the Dutch but the English kept their colonies in Malaya, especially Singapore.

Recorded mintage: unknown.

Specification: 13.15 g, 0.833 fine silver.

Catalog reference: KM-175.1, Scholten-464.

Sources:

• Michael, Thomas, Standard Catalog of World Coins, 1701-1800, 7th ed., Iola, WI: Krause Publications, 2016.
• Passon, Tom, Catalogus van de Munten van de Nederlandse Gebieden Overzee, vanaf 1601 tot heden, Apeldoorn, Netherlands, 2022.
• Scholten, C., The Coins of the Dutch Overseas Territories, 1601-1948, Amsterdam: Jacques Schulman, 1953.
• ^[1]Album, Stephen, Joseph Lang, Paul Montz, Michael Barry and Hanbing Feng, Auction 55, featuring Selections from the Swamperbob Gurney Collection of Cap & Ray 8 Reales, the Kenneth A. Bovenkamp Collection of Ottoman Coins and the 1914 Collection of World Coins, Santa Rosa, CA: Stephen Album Rare Coins, Inc., 2026.

Link to:

• Java 1783 rupee
• 1785 duit, Utrecht mint
• Java 1796 rupee
• Coins and currency dated 1785