Thread: Ancient chinese coins

Hello everyone,

I am a new member to coin talk.

I have acquired a lot of old chinese coins, my first,that I have no way of identifying. Can any of you recommend a good reference? I believe some of the coins are rather old as they are very thin and blank on the reverse. There are also a few charms too.Most of the coins are in such poor condition that it is
hard to make out anything. Can you recommend a way to clean them without damage? Are they copper, bronze or some other material? Thanks in advance. I may be able to scan some of the better ones, if I can figure out how to do it.

Please see next post. There is a a scan there.

hopefully I've got it right now.

The obverse is sideways.

Hi there and welcome to cointalk.

You can check some examples here that I have in my collection: http://www.omnicoin.com/user_view.aspx?id=gxseries

Just don't forget to click on "China" under country else you will have to go through the whole list!

to CoinTalk Bvilleboy, and especially welcome to one of the most difficult areas of our wonderful hobby.

Cash coins have been cast in China, Japan, Korea and Annam (present day Vietnam) for well over a millenium, through the early to mid-20th Century.

There are many excellent reference works, but only two of them are in English. One is Schjoth's Currency of the Far East, essentially a catalog of his own extremely extensive collection. If you are an ANA member you can borrow Schjoth from the ANA library. It occasionally shows up in Amazon.com's used book listings, but it is very expensive.

The other is Fisher's Ding, a translation of Ding Fubao's massive collection of coin tracings and line drawings. My copy was acquired on EBay a few years ago at a reasonable price - about $50 if I recall correctly.

Even for using Schjoth or Fisher, a knowledge of the Chinese characters used on the coins (including their Japanese/Korean pronunciations) is invaluable.

I have some general familiarity with the field, but I am very far from being an expert.

You are right about the obverse of your second coin being sideways - specifically it needs to be rotated 90 degrees to the right. The obverse of your first coin is upside down, so it can be rotated 180 degrees in either direction.

I suspect that both of your pieces are in fact temple charms rather than money, but again, I'm no expert.

Good luck with your research and studies.

I`m not an expert; last time I`ve been searching for more than 120 cast brass coins. You can go by my way:
1. look at www.calgarycoin.com/reference/china/china4.htm - to the chinese cast brass coins identifier (about 150 pages to print!);
2. compare coins with pictures on www.zeno.ru;
3. ask professor Luke Roberts, orientalist, about help. He is cash collector and he knows chinese - just write in searcher LUKE ROBERTS HOMEPAGE.

The first coin is similar to coin of CHU YUAN-CHANG as the REBEL PRINCE WU AD 1364-1367, but as I said - I`m just a stupid amateur.

So, good luck in your investigation!

Thank you all for the replies. I have already bookmarked the referneces you providied. Hope to be able to give some positive followup if/when I make some identities. Once again, I appreciate your help. Thanks

Second on is from Annam (Vietnam), mid 1700s

Generally speaking, Annam pieces are thinner (and sometimes smaller), and are usually easy to pick out if the characters aren't those commonly seen.

Another good reference is Cast Chinese Cash by David Hartill. It came out about a year or so ago and it is quite good. It will probaly become the replacement for Schojth. It contains all that Schojth does and a fair amount more. Plus it is cheaper than Schojth.

Advise about a book to avoid would be the Krause Publications book on Chinese coins by Jen.

Taiwan also had some Cash coins as well,but I am unfamiliar with them.The Annamese ones are called Dongs,which is where the Vietnamese Dong currency got its name derived from.

Aidan.

Taiwan issued a few cah coins - but not many.

I agree with Condor101 - Hartill's Chinese Cash Coins is the best book currently on the market. You can buy it on Scott Semans site for $39. Pricing remains a proble though. Hartill's book only gives an estimate for superior coins [XF] and these prices can be wildly different from the ones you see here in Asia.