I received two cash coins from @dougsmit today. One is from the Northern Song dynasty and one from the Tang Dynasty. I still have not had time to study them much, but here they are. Thank you for sending me these lovely coins.
look on the back of your tang coin and see if you have any marks. above is the reverse of mine, it has a crescent shape at the top. there's an interesting story about an empress and that mark, that probably isn't true ...but should be. i have a northern song of that type as well, reverse blank...
I know nothing of cash coins, but those two sure look nice - clean surfaces and pleasing color. That's about all I can contribute.
Most were blank. Occasionally mints would place marks on the reverse for some unknown reason. Ching coins always have marks on the reverse. It is written in Manchu and labels the mint.
Ming coins also start having mint names. And in the earlier Song and Tang periods, various secret marks were definitely used to delineate the mints, but the meaning of these minute calligraphic varieties are now lost.
The cool thing with 900-1000 year old Chinese coins is that they are so common. I have read accounts of hoards being dug up in the last few years with literally hundreds of thousands if not millions of coins.
Just the other day the Chinese found 40 tons of Chinese cash coins in a grave. I'm sure that once they make sure museums get a nice choice of the best, we're going to see at least thirty nine and a half tons of cash coins hitting the market. That's not going to be good for prices if that's all you care about. However, I personally don't care about the price. I'm a collector and whether a coin is worth a couple hundred dollars or a few dollars makes no difference to me as long as I like it.
