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Message:: [QUOTE="The Meat man, post: 8546928, member: 135271"]I recently acquired some coins of the Dutch East India Company. The Age of Discovery and the opening of trade routes between Europe and the Far East led to the development of some truly gigantic "private" companies, which were so powerful that they not only minted their own coins but actually maintained their own standing armies, able to conduct war and diplomacy. Of these companies, the United East India Company - also known as the Dutch East India Company - was the largest, and one of the first. Here are a few paragraphs of history taken from the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_East_India_Company" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_East_India_Company" rel="nofollow">DEIC Wikipedia page</a>: "The Dutch East India Company (Dutch: Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie, VOC, "United East India Company") was a chartered company established in 1602 when the States General of the Netherlands granted it a 21-year monopoly to carry out trade activities in Asia. It is sometimes considered to have been the first multinational corporation in the world,[2] and it was the first company to issue stock.[3] It was a powerful company, possessing quasi-governmental powers, including the ability to wage war, imprison and execute convicts,[4] negotiate treaties, strike its own coins, and establish colonies.[5] "Statistically, the VOC eclipsed all of its rivals in the Asia trade. Between 1602 and 1796 the VOC sent almost a million Europeans to work in the Asia trade on 4,785 ships, and netted for their efforts more than 2.5 million tons of Asian trade goods. By contrast, the rest of Europe combined sent only 882,412 people from 1500 to 1795, and the fleet of the English (later British) East India Company, the VOC's nearest competitor, was a distant second to its total traffic with 2,690 ships and a mere one-fifth the tonnage of goods carried by the VOC. The VOC enjoyed huge profits from its spice monopoly through most of the 17th century.[6] "Having been set up in 1602 to profit from the Malukan spice trade, the VOC established a capital in the port city of Jayakarta in 1609 and changed the city name into Batavia (now Jakarta). Over the next two centuries the company acquired additional ports as trading bases and safeguarded their interests by taking over surrounding territory.[7] It remained an important trading concern and paid an 18% annual dividend for almost 200 years. "Weighed down by smuggling, corruption and growing administrative costs in the late 18th century, the company went bankrupt and was formally dissolved in 1799. Its possessions and debt were taken over by the government of the Dutch Batavian Republic. The former territories owned by the VOC went on to become the Dutch East Indies and were expanded over the course of the 19th century to include the entirety of the Indonesian archipelago. In the 20th century, these islands would form the Republic of Indonesia." (18% annually over 200 years would turn a $1 investment into almost $238 trillion!) Though the DEIC reached its height in the late 17th century, at the time of these coin's minting it was still a mighty economic force in the East. <img src="https://content.invisioncic.com/k321387/monthly_2022_09/1736_DEIC.jpg.cbeb07566363833215c690e3ef3466b3.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /> <img src="https://content.invisioncic.com/k321387/monthly_2022_09/DEIC_1742.jpg.4d8f25cff3fe868b806ad1a6481fb2ec.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /> I have a couple more DEIC coins coming, so I hope to post some more soon![/QUOTE]

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