NI Bulletin NI Bulletin A Publication of Numismatics International Inc. Volume 45 Nos. 7 / 8 July / August 2010 $4.00 Board of Governors Chairman & Past-President: Michael Jones President: James Terry Vice President: Carl Young Recording Secretary: Christopher Carson Corresponding Secretary: Gordon Robinson e-mail: [email protected] Treasurer: Don Douglas All past Presidents are members of the Board of Governors. Appointed Staff Curator, NI Reference Collection Librarian, NI Library Philip L. Lawrence David Gracey PO Box 570842 Editor Emeritus, NI Bulletin Dallas, TX 75357-0842 Marvin L. Fraley [email protected] Editor, NI Bulletin Auction Manager, NI Mail Bid Sales Herman Blanton Carl Young P.O. Box 247 P.O. Box 810521 Mount Vernon, OH 43050 Dallas, TX 75381-0521 e-mail: [email protected] Telephone: 972-247-0634 Chairman, NI Publications John E. Vandigriff Moderator, NI Educational Programs Howard A. Daniel III Index Editor, NI Bulletin P.O. Box 989 Deltaville, VA 23043-0989 Christopher D. Carson e-mail: [email protected] Archivist Book Orders: Elmore Scott: [email protected] Ross Schraeder Numismatics International Membership Chairman e-mail: [email protected] Ross Schraeder Website: http://www.numis.org P.O. Box 646 Discussion Group: Aubrey, TX 76227 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/numismatics/ e-mail: [email protected] Correspondence should be directed to those persons and addresses above for departments indicated. All other correspondence should be mailed direct to NUMISMATICS INTERNATIONAL, P.O. BOX 570842, DALLAS, TX 75357-0842. Objectives of Numismatics International Numismatics International is a non-profit educational organization. Its Objectives are: to encourage and promote the science of numismatics by specializing in areas and nations other than the United States of America; to cultivate fraternal relations among collectors and numismatic students; to encourage and assist new collectors; to foster the interest of youth in numismatics; to stimulate and advance affiliations among collectors and kindred organizations; and to acquire, share, and disseminate knowledge. MEMBERSHIP FEES: Individual & Club Memberships, $20.00 annually; Junior Membership (18 years of age and under), $15.00 annually; Senior Membership (70 years of age and older), $15.00 annually; Life Membership, $300.00. Membership fees are payable by mail: NUMISMATICS INTERNATIONAL, P.O. BOX 570842, DALLAS, TX 75357-0842 or via PayPal at: [email protected]. Numismatics International Bulletin Volume 45 July / August 2010 Numbers 7 / 8 ANA World’s Fair of Money, Boston, August 10-14, 2010………………….. 136 NI Library Report……………………………………........................................ 136 Jean Elsen The Monetary Operations of the Dutch East Indies Company in the Seventeenth Century………………….……………………………………………………….. 100 Alberto Paashaus The First Silver Coin Minted in Brazil …………………………………………. 116 Herman Blanton Khubilai Khan: 50 Taels........................................................................................ 125 Charles IV of Spain, Proclamation Medal of Sanlúcar de Barrameda…………. 136 CNG Saxon England: Danelaw, Viking Coin Weight .................................................... 130 The Bru Sale St. Eligius …………………………………………………………...................... 131 Dr. Johnson C. Philip Money in India, Part 2: A Survey (continued)…………………………………... 132 NI In this edition of your bulletin we are pleased to offer some excellent articles. I am particularly gratified with the support I have from the membership. We are publishing Jean Elsen’s article on the Dutch East Indies which was originally published by his firm in French. At my request Robert Ronus graciously agreed to translate the article into English for us. Considering the number of citations it was a tedious undertaking. We have another excellent article from contributor Alberto Paashaus, this time on the first Brazilian silver coin. In the editing process of his article I called upon the Geldmuseum (Money Museum), Utrecht NL, for help translating an old document. Librarian Ans ter Woerds enlisted an associate and together they satisfied this request. The Geldmuseum also provided an image of a very rare 1602 eight real of Middelburg. I also appreciate another article on Indian coins submitted by Dr. Philip. In addition to these contributions I also acknowledge support from members Joe Lang (Steve Album) and Ponterio and Associates who generously provided text and images for the Khubilai Khan article. Finally, thanks to CNG and “The Bru Sale” for allowing NI to reprint short articles, which I hope you find as interesting as I do. This magazine is only possible because of your willing participation. Herman Blanton ISSN: 0197-3088 Copyright 2010 Numismatics International, P.O. Box 570842, Dallas, TX USA 75357-0842 99 The Monetary Operations of the Dutch East Indies Company in the Seventeenth Century Jean Elsen Jean Elsen & ses Fils, NI #2696 Translated by Robert Ronus, NI #LM139 The Dutch East India Company played a primordial role in the expansion of the Republic of the United Provinces during its Golden Century, the 17th century. The great prosperity the young state enjoyed in the course of this century cannot be disassociated from the exceptional development of the Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC), which was for a time the most important commercial company in the world. At the peak of its power it possessed more than half the world’s sea-going ships and was the most influential of the European companies founded in the seventeenth century to exploit the riches of Asia. This flowering of industry and commerce lasted as long as the period of Dutch colonization,1 i.e., until the middle of the 18th century. After that London gradually became preeminent. The VOC played a capital role not only in the history of the United Provinces but also in that of the principalities, sultanates and empires all along the coasts of India, Ceylon, Malaysia, the islands that today constitute Indonesia, China and Japan. With just one exception, during all the 17th century the VOC did not strike its own coinage for its Asian trade. It used the pieces of 8 reals struck in the Spanish colonies in Latin America, coins of the United Provinces and of the Spanish Netherlands and silver ingots from the Republic and Japan. In order to deal with the constant fluctuations in exchange rates and to limit the massive exodus of large silver coins, the VOC had recourse to raising the coins’ value by countermarking coins with the accepted weight and precious metal content. The export of coins struck in the name of the VOC to the East Indies only began in the 18th century. By 1570 the shipyards of the Northern Netherlands had created a new type of ship, the flûte (fluyt, fluit) or Vlieboot, a sturdy ship with enlarged broadsides to give a large amount of space but which needed a crew one-fifth smaller than other ships of the same tonnage. This lower cost constituted a considerable advantage because, in the long run, personnel costs (wages, food) were the largest item of expenses.2 These ships allowed a rapid expansion of trade with the Indies from the end of the 16th century. A very large number of refugees from the Spanish Netherlands,3 Jews expelled from Spain and Portugal and French Huguenots, were among the first pioneers of trade with the Indies. The first captains were refugees from Antwerp or English officers sent by Queen Elizabeth of England to fight the Spaniards. Starting in 1593, more than 20,000 “independents,” opponents of the established religion belonging to independent and autonomous churches, emigrated from England. They provided the colonial companies of the young Dutch Republic with a number of naval officers. As a result of intervention by the Generalité (the federal government), the States General (representative assembly) of the Republic, and by the mayors of Amsterdam, the trading companies which had been formed at the end of the 16th century merged to form two big companies: the Holland company and the Zeeland company (1600). In this period Holland and Zeeland possessed the largest number of ships in all of Europe.4 Their merchant navies amounted to “200000 tons and 600000 tons at the 100 end of the century, which was double that of France and England combined.”5 As soon as they had been formed, the two new companies set themselves against each other in pitiless competition. As a result, under pressure from the Grand Pensionary (the Dutch title equivalent to Prime Minister) Jan van Oldenbarnevelt, all the trading companies active in the Indies—essentially from Holland and Zeeland—merged on March 20th, 1602 to form the United East Indies Company (Vereenigde Ostindische Compagnie or VOC),6 a commercial company founded for the purpose of trade with the Orient, with the enormous capital of 6.5 million florins, ten times more than that of its English competitor, the East India Company, founded in 1600. The VOC or, more familiarly, Jan Compagnie (John Company),7 owned by some large shareholders with 40% of its capital subscribed by exiles from the Southern Netherlands,8 was thus in 1602 the first true European share company and the first large limited liability company in history.9 It would enjoy rapid development, importing into the United Provinces quantities of pepper, spices, silk, cotton and porcelain. These purchases were financed by the profits realized in Asia and from the shipment of manufactured goods and precious metals in the form of coins and ingots. After the closure of the river Escaut (or Schelde in Dutch) which led to the decline of the Belgian provinces, pepper and spices from Asia were directed to the Dutch ports, despite the war against Spain. One of Spanish America’s most important export products, silver, after transit through Spain, ended up for the most part in the United Provinces.10 The transformation of imported metals into the coins required for trade had become an important activity for the Republic’s mints and an international exchange market quickly developed,11 essentially concentrated in Amsterdam. The capital of the province of Holland had become the greatest metropolis in the United Provinces: in the course of the 17th century its population increased from 100,000 to 200,000 inhabitants. From Amsterdam, before 1600, the imported metal was exported to the Baltic and Mediterranean regions.12 Much of the silver was imported in the form of ingots but above all in the form of crudely struck coins called pieces of 8, reals of 8 (reales de a ocho),13 pieces of 8 reals, Spanish piastres or mattes.14 Apart from the Spanish real, the most important silver coin of the peninsula, there were struck reals of Mexico and Peru, half-reals and pieces of 2 and 4 reals. The striking of 8 reals, planned from November 1537, had begun in the reign of Philip II.15 In the end production was essentially concentrated on the pieces of 8 reals16 and these circulated massively in the Northern and Southern Netherlands during the second half of the 16th century. The theoretical weight of the real was fixed by its size relative to the Cologne mark.17 Since this had a theoretical weight of 233 g,18 the real, struck 67 to the Mark, had a weight of 233/67 or 3.48 g.19 This is exactly the weight put forward by the twentieth century scholar Enno van Gelder.20 This size was maintained throughout the reign of Philip III and in the first years of Philip IV, the 1620s.21 The theoretical weight of the 8 reals or mattes was 27.82 g. The crude striking of the reals and their multiples and their very irregular shape made clipping easy. The weight was also reduced by wear. The regulations of the archdukes Albert and Isabelle therefore fixed minimum weights, below which they could not be circulated. The real had to weigh “2 esterlins or more,” i.e., at least 3.06 g.22 In 1611 the value was no longer set on the basis of a real but on the basis of a piece of 8 reals, the weight of which was given as: 17 esterlins and 25 as (with an allowed tolerance of 6 as [“as” is comparable to “grain,” see note 22—Ed.]),23 i.e., a 101 weight of 27.22 g, equivalent to one ninth of a Troy mark.24 It was considered that coins in circulation, having lost a little of their weight due to wear or clipping, should weigh at least 9 pieces to a mark of 245 g. There is no reason to think it was different in the United Provinces. A weight of 9 to the mark was easy to check and it is unlikely that the mark weighed more in Amsterdam than in the Southern Netherlands.25 Towards the end of the 16th century and in the early years of the 17th century, the amount of American gold and silver imported was reduced due to the war with Spain. On the other hand, in the same period the demand for precious metals for the Asian trade, where Spanish reals were the most widely used and most sought after coins despite their rough appearance, increased markedly. Moreover, the export of mattes to Asia was very profitable. As a result, the amount of metal available for coin striking and monetary circulation in the Republic was meaningfully reduced.26 Dordrecht: AR 8 reales, 1601, struck by the Compagnie Van Verre of Amsterdam for trade in the East Indies. Obverse: 1601 over crowned arms of the Province of Holland between four numeral ones sideways on each side (= value of 8), around it INSIGNIA • HOLLANDIAE •. Reverse: Crowned arms of Amsterdam, supported by lions, around it (rosette) ET CIVITATIS • AMSTELREDAMENSIS •. Ref.: Scholten 1, Dav.413, Delm.1206, Salvesen 11, KM 10. (Image courtesy of Goldberg Coins.) The pieces of 8 reals shipped to Asia were greatly appreciated in India27 and by the Javanese and the Malays, who called them real batoe. However, because of the war with Spain, the quantity of mattes sent was insufficient. In 1600 the Compagnie Van Verre (1594-1602) of Amsterdam asked the States of Holland for authorization to strike coins for the East Indies where supplies were inadequate. This was granted on March 1 1601, but on condition that the coins could not circulate in the Republic. The same year the Dordrecht mint issued six denominations in silver: pieces of 8 reals, halves of 4 reals, quarters of 2 reals, eighths of 1 real, sixteenths of a half real and thirty-seconds of a quarter of a real. The value of the real was fixed at the level of a schelling (escalin, shilling), the piece of 8 reals being then worth 8 schellingen or 48 stuivers.28 The theoretical weight of the piece of 8 reals was very probably 1/9 of a mark, i.e., if we take the mark as 245 g, it is 27.22 g, the same weight as the matte in the Spanish Netherlands. The theoretical weight of the piece of 8 and its subdivisions would then be: 27.22g; 13.61 g; 6.81 g; 3.40 g; 1.70 g; 0.85 g.29 It is very probable that the precious metal content was the same as that of the 8 Spanish reals, 0.931 or, for the stuiver, 0.5277 g of fine silver30 (1 g of fine silver = 1.90 stuiver), while in the 102 Belgian provinces the piece of 8 reals was valued at 40 stuivers so that a stuiver was worth 0.6329 g of fine silver (1 g of fine silver = 1.58 stuiver). Priced 20% higher, the 8 reals of the Compagnie Van Verre obviously could not circulate in the Republic. They had to be shipped to the Indies where the exchange rate was 20% higher than in the Southern Netherlands. Middelburg: AR 8 reales, 1602, struck by the Compagnie Van Verre of Middelburg (United Company of Zeeland) for trade in the East Indies Obverse: Garnished 9-field shield with the arms of the Nobility and Cities of Zeeland ), around it (tower mm of Middelburg). MONE•ARG•ORDI•ZEELANDIAE• Reverse: 1602 over crowned arms of Zeeland dividing 8-R, around it •LVCTOR•.ET•.EMERGO• Ref.: Scholten 7, Dav.414, Delm.1209, KM 20. (Image courtesy of Geldmuseum, Utrecht) In 1601 the two Zeeland companies trading with the Indies (de Moucheron and Ten Haeff) merged to form one single Vereenigde Zeeuwsche Compagnie (United Zeeland Company). Following the example of the Company of Amsterdam, the Compagnie Van Verre of Middelburg (Zeeland) requested similar permission to strike coins, which the States of Zeeland granted in a resolution of November 16th, 1601. The only coin struck under this concession was a piece of 8 reals dated 1602. The resolution states that the mintmaster Melchior Wyntges had agreed to supply silver to the Company to strike 1200 marks of 8 reals (reaal van achten) or 10800 pieces of 8.31 This number shows that these pieces were struck 9 to the mark and had a theoretical weight of 245 g/9 = 27.22 g. The coin has on the obverse a nine-field shield with the arms of the nobility and the cities of Zeeland encircled by the legend MONE.ARG.ORDI.ZEELANDIAE (small tower) and on the reverse the crowned arms of Zeeland dividing 8-R, surrounded by the legend, LVCTOR.ET.EMERGO (I struggle and survive), with, above the crown, the date 16-02.32 With the same weight, the Zeeland 8 reals would certainly have had the same precious metal content as the pieces of 8 reals of the company of Amsterdam (27.22 g; 0.931) and the same value, 48 stuivers. The coins would certainly have been prohibited from circulating in the Republic. At the beginning of the 17th century, silver was sent to the Indies in the form of 8 reals or mattes but, starting in 1602, the price of reals in the Republic increased so shipping them became less profitable. Apart from Spanish reals, South and East Asia also used gold ducats. Gold from the African possessions of Portugal, which had been united with Spain since 1580, was transformed into ducats in the mints of the 103 Republic but was then exported to the Baltic,33 where the price was higher. In certain periods the amounts exported, issued by about ten well-equipped mints, were so large that the money circulating in the Republic was all foreign. The mints were therefore very dependent on the precious metals trade concentrated in Amsterdam.34 With the exchange rate of the 8 reals having increased, the VOC tried to introduce other large silver coins into its trading posts. In 1615/16, the Amsterdam directors for the first time sent a strong-box of leeuwendaalders or lion daalders (4000 pieces), but it was not a success. The Chinese preferred to return home with silver coins or ingots rather than with ships filled with goods and demanded to be paid in silver for the products they sold. But they refused the lion daalders because they considered the alloy too low (0.750). Jean Pieterszoon Coen, one of the first governors of the Company in the Insulinde (Islands of the East Indies), from 1617 to 1623 and from 1627 to 1629, requested that small silver money, escalins (schellingen) and double, single and half stuivers be sent out for the use of the VOC. In 1617 the directors of the Company at head office, known as The Seventeen Gentlemen (Heeren Zeventien or Heeren XVII), sent a first shipment: double and single stuivers equivalent to 14000 florins. After the foundation of Batavia35 in 1619, a second shipment was sent out in 1622, also consisting of double and single stuivers, with a value of 40000 florins. In the following years small coins, also for trade, were sent out regularly.36 Following the poor success of the lion daalders, the directors of the VOC in the Indies proposed to their counterparts at headquarters that ingots should be shipped out. In 1620 the Amsterdam directors sent out a first shipment of silver ingots, along with Spanish 8 real pieces and Netherlands coins,37 gold ducats, lion daalders, rijksdaalders and schellingen which were put into circulation at an exchange rate fixed in Batavia. In addition to silver and gold coins, especially ducats, the VOC then regularly shipped gold and silver ingots to Asia.38 As soon as they arrived in Batavia, the silver coins disappeared from circulation. The high value of silver meant that the rate for silver coins presented for exchange was regularly increased and they came to be considered objects of speculation. Bought at low prices, silver coins were then sold at higher prices.39 Quantities of small silver coins were also imported. Put into circulation in bags of 300 florins, these bags of 300 florins could be used to pay larger sums. The public notice dated July 11, 1639, drew attention to the difference in the precious metal content of good Dutch money and small coins.40 It was above all the large Netherlands silver coins that the natives hoarded to sell at a large profit when the Chinese junks arrived. Every measure was tried to prevent the exodus of the white metal; the exchange rate was raised, then reduced. These imprecise tariffs41 quickly gave rise to interminable disputes with the directors of the Company at head office who sometimes forbade the fixing of the exchange rates by the Batavia government and sometimes revoked their own orders or fixed the rates higher or lower.42 The Chinese took advantage of this by buying and exporting the best coins. In 1625 the United Provinces began a long period of monetary stability during which the exchange rate of coins hardly changed,43 but on March 18th, 1633, new general coin regulations decreed for the Belgian provinces by Philip IV increased the exchange rate of the 8 reals and its subdivisions. The Spanish 8 real, weighing 17 esterlins and 25 as (with a tolerance of 6 as), was raised to 2 florins and 8 patards or 104 48 sols (stuivers), with equivalent changes for the 4 and 2 real pieces. Reals of Mexico and Peru, with the same weight and tolerance, were given an exchange rate of 2 florins and 7 patards or 47 sols, again with equivalent changes for the 4 & 2 real pieces. The Spanish real weighing at least 2 esterlins would be worth 5 patards. In the Republic, the exchange rate of the matte was already 48 stuivers in 1626.44 This increase in the exchange rate to 48 stuivers made more difficult profitable shipments of 8 reals to Batavia, where the real was also valued at 48 stuivers. On the other hand, the lion daalders, quoted at 40 stuivers since 1610, with a silver content of 20.76 g— the 8 reals with a weight of 27.22 g contained 25.33 g of fine silver—became a very attractive piece of merchandise to ship to Asia, where demand for silver remained strong. The lion daalders apppeared in Batavia. Sent on to Surat and Siam,45 they were much appreciated. In Batavia, the 8 real became less commonly used since its value was kept unchanged at 48 stuivers and “real” became a denomination for accounting purposes considered synonymous with 48 stuivers or 12 schellingen. In Spain, on December 23rd, 1642, Philip IV decreed that the real would keep the same alloy but that new reals would be struck at 83 1/4 to the mark instead of 67 to the mark.46 The theoretical weight of the new 8 real pieces was only 22.39 g.47 These new provisions, reducing the weight by nearly 20%, increased the value of the silver mark (0.931) and silver coins by more than 24%. They were intended to reduce significantly the massive exports of gold and silver but were not effective because the foreigner or merchant who sold a product for a real de a ocho (a piece of 8 reals) now demanded 10 reals of the new money, which came to the same thing. Therefore, Philip IV quickly reversed himself, probably in 1643 or 1644, coming back to a higher weight for the real and its multiples, hardly lighter than before 1643. It is probable that the arrival in 1643-44 in Batavia of these light reals of 22.39 g, containing only 20.84 g of fine silver48 made the fine silver content of the real of 48 stuivers used in accounting fall to 20.84 g compared to 25.89 g before. Furthermore, the fine silver of the lion daalder was almost the same as that of the light real: 27.68 g x 0.750 = 20.76 g. The lion daalder now had the value of the accounting real of 48 stuivers. In any case, the lion daalder was very common in Batavia in 1645 and was called a kroon (couronne, crown). Scholten wrote that in 1645 “the lion daalder or real kroon represented the fictional accounting real.”49 The lion daalder thus replaced the 8 real in Batavia as the coin representing the accounting denomination of the real of 48 stuiver, even though Philip IV already in 1643 or 1644 brought the weight back to close to what it had been before.50 The increasing melting down of reals in the Spanish Netherlands favored the adoption of the lion daalder as the new base coin and coin of account, with an exchange rate of 1 real or 48 stuivers. Worth 40 stuivers in Amsterdam and 48 stuivers in Batavia, a 20% profit could be made from sending coins to the Indies. The Issue of Silver Coins in Batavia, 1645 The massive melting down of mattes and their fractions had meaningfully reduced the amount of metal exported from the Belgian provinces to the United Provinces and from there to Batavia, which continued to severely lack silver coins. The profitable trade carried on with the merchants on the Chinese junks who visited Batavia required payment in silver coins because the Chinese continued to insist on payment 105 in cash for the goods they bought. Moreover, the natives hoarded large silver coins with the aim of reselling them at a higher price when the Chinese junks arrived. In a proclamation dated February 26th, 1645, the East Indies Company decided that a lot of countermarked Japanese silver ingots (japans schuitzilver)51 could be used to strike coins to fill their needs52 and meet the demand for large silver coins. In 1645 the VOC thus had silver coins struck called crowns, half-crowns and quarter- crowns of Batavia, which circulated with a value of 48, 24 and 12 stuivers respectively.53 The type was designed with a sword capped with two laurel branches crosswise and the Company’s monogram in a crown. The legends consisted of the words “ANNO 1645 BATAVIAE” and the indication of value. Since the Chinese did not appreciate the low grade alloy of the lion daalders, Batavia probably decided to issue coins with a greater silver content but with a lower weight. If the weight indicated in the public notice is correct (7/8 of a lion daalder),54 the crown should have a weight of 24.22 g. To maintain the fine silver content of the real at the same level as the lion daalder, the precious metal content had to be higher than that of the lion daalder. Using an alloy of 6/7 or 0.857, the silver content would remain the same as that of the lion daalder and equally the value of the real: 27.68 g x (7/8) x (6/7) = 27.68 g x 3/4 = 20.76 g. Numerous forgeries quickly appeared, probably due to a too low precious metal content since underweight coins could easily be spotted. The new coins were already ordered to be withdrawn from circulation on September 23rd, 1647. Apart from the issue of light reals decreed by Philip IV towards the end of 1642, other important events certainly influenced the Batavia authorities. A large scale fraud had developed in Potosi. All the coins that were struck in the 1640s were below weight and made with a low grade alloy. After this great conspiracy was discovered, a strict check of all coins in circulation was instituted. Philip IV was obliged to issue a new coin regulation on October 2 1647, ordering the reduction in value of reals in the Spanish Netherlands to billon since “tests have shown that a large number of these pieces have been altered, forged or are unequal in weight or precious metal content: the evaluation and the selection have become impossible”.55 The change to billon (money to be melted down) was decreed for the pieces from Peru as well as the “parts of Spanish reals that were distributed among the people representing forty, twenty, ten, five and two-and-a half patards” under the proclamation of 1610. All coins that were too light had to be brought to the coin offices or attested money changers “to be given the value according to the tests that would be made.”56 These events probably contributed to the replacement in Batavia of mattes by lion daalders, with a stable weight and precious metal content, valued at 1 real or 48 stuivers. In the mint workshops in the United Provinces, new silver coins were struck in quantity starting in 1659: the silver rider, officially called zilveren rijder with an exchange rate fixed at 63 stuivers,57 and the silver ducat, called zilveren dukaat worth 50 stuivers. These pieces quickly came to be called ducaton and rijksdaalder. Their fine silver content was the same as that of the coins of the Spanish Netherlands.58 Again, in 1659 the patagon (24.59 g of fine silver) was called a Brabantsche rijksdaalder and valued at 50 stuivers, the same as the Nederlandse rijksdaalder (25.69 g of fine silver) which then saw its value climb from 50 to 52 stuivers and continued to be exported to be used for payments at an exchange rate of 52 stuivers or 106