1633 - 1638 - Portuguese Malacca
Replica - Xerafim TA - D M

Denomination Four Tanga Alloy Silver ? Type Struck Diameter 31.5 mm Thickness 1.9 mm Weight Legal 12.45 gms Weight 13.50 gms DieAxis 100° Mint Malacca
	Gomes F3:20 ; CMC #77
Denomination Four Tanga Alloy Silver ? Type Struck Diameter 26.9 mm Thickness 2.? mm Weight Legal 12.45 gms Weight 12.?? gms DieAxis 0?° Mint Malacca
	Gomes F3:18 ; CMC #78
Denomination Four Tanga Alloy Silver ? Type Struck Diameter 29.3 mm Thickness 2.0 mm Weight Legal 12.45 gms Weight 11.83 gms DieAxis 0° Mint Malacca
	Gomes F3:17 ; CMC #79

Obverse : Crowned Coat of arms of Portugal divides A M (Asia Malacca) or M A (Malacca) within line-dotted-line circles
Reverse : TA (Tanga Asia) monogram divides D M (De Malacca) with year I635, x63x or xx4x below, Within line-dotted-line circles.

See also a genuine coin of this type.
It is listed in T. M. De Silva Abeywardene Catalog of Ancient coins of Ceylon in 1952 for Rs150/-

A 1635 Malacca quadruple Tanga was listed as Lot 1315 in 1914 Auction of Henry Thomas Grogan's famous Coin Collection. Described as unique it was sold for 230 Guilders (27.5 Gold Sovereigns) which was one of the highest prices paid for an individual Silver coin in that Auction. It was however not unique. Three were listed in the 1914 Catalog of coins of the Colombo Museum as shown in scan below.

The 1635 replica in addition to a wrong style, is larger and thinner and nuch heavier weight to the legal weight. The next two are very amusing since they have been replicated with dates x63x and xx4x exactly as described in the Colombo Museum catalog, which used x to indicate an illegible digit. Since the coin referred to is also illustrated there is no ambiguity that the real coin does not have x63x. Catalog #78 is described as xx4x but that is not illustrated. I am told that coins with x63x and xx4x have sold in leading Auctions, which just indicates to me that some who should be experts are sometimes misled even by stupid reproductions. The replicas shown above are more than 30 years old.

These replica were first brought to my attention in 2000 via an E-mail inquiry from Malaysia about a Portuguese Tanga with a clear XF date indicated by "x63x". This led to some interesting discussion on southasia-coins@yahoogroups.com

See also identical replica with double countermark which was put on eBay Auction twice in winter of 2003/2004 and the extended correspondence to convince the sellers that it was fake.

The uncleaned XF condition replicas were scanned at 600 or 300 dpi and displayed at 200 dpi. They were obtained in 2005 April from the collection of Late Mr C. S. G. Fernando which had few of them.

Text from
* Catalog of Coins in the Colombo Museum By H. W. Codrington. Colombo 1914
* Collection Henry Thomas Grogan, J. Schulman, Auction 23-02-1914.