Old Burma. Tennaserim- Pegu huge lead dragon coin.

Tennaserim-Pegu lead coin. Stylized dragon motif. Circa 17th century. Very rare. More so in Intact condition. Heavy piece at approx 500g.

 

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That's big. Is the composition all lead?

 

Was this a high denomination for the time? Why lead? Interesting.

 

It can't be all lead, or it wouldn't have any strength. Typically, lead issues in the Western world are alloyed with a certain amount of copper and tin.

 

Thanks JA.

 

I believe it's a tin-lead Alloy heavier on lead. I did not do a metal composition test on it. But judging from its look it seemed like tthat and it's brittle. As for the denomination, lead pieces like these are quite abundant around the region. Some look like wheels and even flowers. It's quite primitive for the region and possibly smaller tribal communities.. I still do not have a good reference in these yet..

 

Lead is a by-product of the refining of other metals such as copper and tin, so you almost always find something made from lead where objects made of bronze occur. My collection of lead bears no relationship to the OP coin, other than the metal composition. Five Nabataean tesserae and a seal with confronted busts of Constantius II and Constantius Gallus (one of only two known examples).

 

Lead seems to be a pretty popular substitute metal for coinage across many cultures..

 

The so-called "coins" of Tennaserim-Pegu were used for various daily transactions, but wasn't really an official coinage from any particular government. The authority on this series is Robinson who wrote:

The Lead and Tin Coins of Pegu and Tenasserim

The particular coin that Loong Siew mentions is rare and a difficult piece to find. I have been looking for one for some time (but this series isn't really my main focus, just an offshoot). There is a whole section on these coins on zeno.ru, including the ones from my collection, which were originally from Robinson's collection. Hence, they are plate coins from his book:

Tenasserim-Pegu: Anonymous (early 19th c.) Tin Token (Rob-pt.3, #18)

Obv: Cock to left within circle, beads from mouth
Rev: 2 clouds and what appears to be sylized Tibetan characters, perhaps imitating a late 18th or early 19th century Sino-Tibetan sho

 

That's a nice specimen. Being from Malaysia, getting my hands on good numismatic books is a nightmare. As I collect mostly Chinese Japanese coins I only have those 2 types. .. now that I am exploring SE Asian coins, I am on the hunt.. ..

Anyway I only saw the huge specimens auctioned only twice for now.. once in Stephen Album and the other with Jean Elsen of France. Intact pieces at least. . These flake off easy and needs delicate handling lest they break off...

 

My Sri Lanka 1/4 Lakshmi, 1st C. BCE, is lead, however not as large at 2g

 

I missed out on Album's auction and hence it is now gone . But I am still on the lookout. As for books, while not a complete substitute for Robinson's, but still quite helpful is Arthur Phayre's book which can be downloaded for free:

Coins of Arakan, of Pegu and of Burma

http://bildsuche.digitale-sammlunge...df&einzelsegmentsuche=&mehrsegmentsuche=&l=en

BTW, make sure you clean your hands thoroughly after handling the coins as lead is toxic...

 

Doubtful. There are so, so, so many of these that either aren't published or aren't published in readily available sources. Welcome to the wild, wooly world of sigillography!

 

@Loong Siew your hemi-kilogram coin is fantastic! Curious as to how this coin was transacted: was it used as an unit of account among inter/intra-governments or large transaction entities? (As alluded by being rare.) or, does this represent one of the largest of a several denomination common currency series used everyday? And if so, wow, LEAD in common usage could possibly cause a population to go mad...

 

Yes, of course. I should have said there was only one other example published, that is known to me...Münzzentrum Rheinland 151 (21 April 2009), lot 875.

 

Most earlier SE Asian pieces containing lead are tin/lead mixtures. I have some Ayutthaya pieces of this same allow. There is even a little silver in the alloy as well.

 

I am less worried about lead in coins than that in drinking water (lead pipes were outlawed in the 80's), lead paint (chips eaten by children in old buildings), and, the best of all, leaded gasoline. It is no wonder I am what I am. When I was little, my father took me out to watch the low flying airplanes spraying crops with DDT. I loved airplanes when I was ten or so and where else could you see one flying so low it seemed you could almost touch it. When I was in 7th grade public school shop class we cast lead bookends. I loved that, too. My mother was a nurse and would bring home broken thermometers so I could play with the mercury. Mercury is fun and you could rub it on pennies to make them look silver. I can only assume that the tiles on the kitchen floor were asbestos. Those are my excuses for any way you find me deficient. Wash your hands anyway.

 

Actually I don't really know how they were transacted or why lead.. I do know that tin has always been a dominant metal in South East Asia.. early Malay archipelago coins use them almost exclusively as opposed to the common bronze, copper and steel. But lead, not sure.. probably because when first minted they may look shiny and attractive as a cheap substitute for silver? Then again, back then people were not aware of the dangers it pose.

I have a couple of other smaller lead and tin alloyed pieces. Much much smaller and not likely related to the Tennaserim-Pegu series an example as follow.

This one I'm not sure..my source tells me it is very likely an early Indian influenced piece. Tin and possibly some lead. The deer design is much more realistic and we'll designed as opposed to later stylized local issues.

 

My understanding, from a doctor friend, is that handling lead poses so little a risk of poisoning as to be negligible. Ingestion is how poisoning occurs, and it takes a steady diet over a long period of time for most symptoms to occur, unless it's an unusually large single dose. As far as that goes, almost anything can poison you in large doses, including water.

 

Well.. I think most of us were around before unleaded gasoline became the standard...