Outline of Coins in Singapore as Economic History: 1819-1938

Economic history is typically viewed through broad, macro criteria like gross domestic product, balance of payment and overall employment. This book takes an unconventional, micro approach to economic history. Momentous events and prominent individuals of the past have been captured in coins. Yet, hardly anything has been written on what coins can inform of some aspects of the broad, diffused developments in the economy. The book attempts to do so for Singapore of the nineteenth and early twentieth century while casting a brief look at Temasek in the fourteenth century. Its underlying motif is that these little pieces of metal can yield valuable insights on some aspects of past economic developments which the macro approach cannot capture or only poorly.

Most Singaporeans doubted until quite recently the existence of a thriving Singapore of any significance before the arrival of Raffles in 1819. The island, then known as Temasek, was perceived as virtually virgin forest, an insignificant backwater. Excavated Chinese coins helped dismantle the conventional wisdom. Separate chapters then discuss the copper cent, the silver subsidiaries of the dollar and the dollar itself.

Topics in the chapter on cents include the little known, bitter contest for currency supremacy between the British Indian rupee and the cent, the rise and fall of the British merchant token, the incongruous reliance on barter amidst a plethora of coins, and the use of coins to cast light on the prevailing price level. Topics on the silver subsidiaries include the scarcely known decision of the Straits Settlements government to oversupply the colony with silver auxiliaries so as to raise public revenue for a cash-strapped treasury, the role of coins as wage payment, and the possible negation of Gresham's law that the bad coin would drive out of circulation the good one. The dollar chapter treats inter alia the debasement of the Straits dollar in 1907 and the dethronement of the silver dollar by the dollar banknote.

The publication is meant for the man in the street interested in the history of Singapore and for coin collectors. It may be of interest to afficionados of stamps, postcards and other memorabilia who wonder what their passion can contribute to the history of Singapore. The micro approach can also be of interest to individuals beyond Singapore who find it relevant for their own country.