2021-09-16 Thu

Known as photduang in Thai, Bullet money or bullet coins were a type of coinage historically used in Siam and its predecessor kingdoms.

They were almost exclusively made of silver, in the form of a bar bent into a roundish shape, and stamped with certain marks. Photduang were issued according to the baht system of weights, known by Westerners as the tical, which is the basis of the modern Thai currency.

Their earliest common use is from the Sukhothai Kingdom and they were used by Ayutthaya and its successor kingdoms Thonburi and Rattanakosin, up until 1904. The above coin is a 4 Baht coin depicting eight dots in Chakra as well as Mongkut stamp.

Image Courtesy: numisbids.com