Saw this lot pop up in one of my favorite dealer's inventories, and I bought it without thinking too much. I bought it for the shattered ring coin fragments. The dealer felt they were fake, but they have very convincing patina and wear, and I have not seen fakes shatter as cleanly as these coins. If they are fake, I am out only $27, which I can probably make up with the ming knives, which I know are genuine. They could be genuine coins modified into rare varieties, and these just broke apart in the process. I can't wait to examine these in hand. I see several extremely rare varieties among the fragments. I see at least six different types. If genuine and intact, they would be worth $1000-4000 each easily. @Ken Dorney , @Loong Siew, and @mrbreeze will probably know what they are seeing. My write-up of the type: https://www.cointalk.com/threads/the-first-round-ancient-chinese-coins.277764/#post-2403802
There are some really rare fragments in there! But with the nature of these things the value will only be token, so I think the price was fair. Most people wont want bits and pieces, so what does one charge? From what I can see in the photo as closely as I can, they look right to me. I would not hesitate to say they were genuine, but then I dont have them in hand. I would say a microscope will tell you if ancient or not. Neat pieces!
@TypeCoin971793 @Ken Dorney @Loong Siew @mrbreeze I’m amazed that you can recognize and make sense of these fragments that most of us would be scratching our heads over. What knowledge and amazing skills you possess.
Ray, There are only so many types of early Chinese, so even with a fragment one can attribute the type. Of course, many will just scratch their head and say, 'its all Greek to me!'.
You have a number of cool specimens there... as you can see from the illustrations above, there are at the low end of the Hartill rarity scale.. this makes them very valuable if intact...
I got some China fun items a month ago that I have not attributed yet. 1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 6) 7) 8) 9) 10)
Very cool!! I would love to have one of the more common 6.3 types, and would certainly have bought those fragments of the rarer types... at twice the price or more. My newest Chinese acquisition is H 6.23 (State of Qi, one hua), on the second page of Hartill that TypeCoin posted. I like it that it has a square hole and is about the same size as the later prototypical 1 cash. I got it from a Heritage auction, and I must say I'm unlikely to buy from them again... the shipping costs to Canada were totally ridiculous.
Cool! My earliest round Chinese coin is a Hartill 6.3 that I bought many years ago from Frank Robinson:
My earliest Hartill numbers: China ANCIENT Cowrie - BONE 2 holes for clothing or funeral bier 20mm Hartill 1-2v Coole 51-66 China Shang 1766-1154 BCE or Zhou Dynasty Ghost Face Ant Nose 1.65g Hartill 1.4 China Ming Knife money 400-220 BCE bronze Hartill 4.42-3
Early Hartill numbers: CHINA - ZHOU Dynasty, 1122-255 BC square foot spade 350-250 BC AN YANG - 3 lines rev bronze 31x52mm 7.45g H3.184 S13+ My earliest ROUND China coin: China Qin 220-180 BC AE 12 Zhu Ban Liang Blank H7.7 You got me beat @Parthicus ! NICE coin you have!
I love these early Hartill numbers man!! I'm debating and hoping maybe one day I'll try and get a large early spade also...
I got the coins and I tried putting them together. 5 pieces remain completely unassigned, and one is unsure (seperare piece in bottom-right corner). The coin in the bottom right I have no clue as to its attribution. It does not appear to be in Hartill. It has a rim and is uncharacteristicly heavy for the type. @AnYangMan care to opine? Still need to examine them as far as authenticity goes. This is an odd and interesting bunch.
Well, let's give it a try. The rightmost piece, inscribed 两 Liang, is not part of the rest of the coin, I’d wager. Note that I don’t have it in hand, but the patination looks a little different than the rest of the coin. The rest of the coin seems to have a pretty raised rim, this piece does not. The other parts have an obvious square hole, this looks way more like a round hole cash. Also note the fact that, if the picture isn’t playing tricks with my eyes, the 两 part is shown in way more relief than the rest. We’ll start with this 两 Liang piece. On the right side, we obviously see part of the edge, and can thus conclude that this character appeared on the right side of a coin. That rules out most Ban Liangs, except for the rare few that have inverted charachters. There are two (three, actually) other types, with Liang to the right. There are two main varieties of the Liang Zi type, one with and one without rim. Looking at our fragment, the latter could be a candidate. The last coin with Liang on the right side is the Qin state 重一两十(二/四)铢 Zhong Yi Liang Shi (er/si) Zhu. I highly doubt this piece originally had a square hole (look at its left edge), this, in combination with the shape Liang has (trapezoidal, with long, protruding strokes on the bottom) and the way the top stroke is tilted slight left, towards the hole, leads me to believe it is indeed the coin mentioned directly above, a Zhong Yi Liang Shi (er/si) Zhu. Now onto the rest of the coin on the bottom right. You already mention that it isn’t in Hartill. At first I was quite puzzled by the coin. A square hole? Rims? The character on the left (an archaic form for Jiu 九, nine)? As far as I know, there was never a Chinese coin denominated in nines. Then the other part, let’s call it the ‘Shan’ 山-components, for there are two next to each other (you can see this clearly on the sellers pics). I originally thought it would be a part of the Gong character, as on the coin centre-bottom. But that character on a square-holed cash simply doesn’t exist. Then it dawned on me. I have seen it! A while ago, when visiting a fellow collector, (you undoubtedly know who), I actually handled such an object. And why it isn’t in Hartill? Well, it is called Cast Chinese Coins. And this isn’t actually a coin….. Jiuling (酒令) is an ancient Chinese drinking game. I am not even familiar with contemporary drinking games, let alone those played halfway across the world two millennia ago, so I can’t comment on how it is played. The only thing I know, is that you apparently use tokens in some sort of way. This is such a token, which is the reason they aren’t in Hartill. The series is rather extensive, and many varieties exist, in terms of size, the presence of rims and inscriptions. All however feature a number, all numbers up to I believe 23 are known, and the character di 第. The latter translates to something along the lines of “Number”or in combination with such a number the “twentieth”, “fifth”, “eight”, etc. There are also a couple of rare varieties that seemingly denote some sort of worth in Liang (such as the top coin posted below), leading many scholars, such as Coole, to believe they were actually coins. The other comment that you make, that it is relatively heavy for a coin of such size, also checks out. The specimen pictured below weights in at 23 gram and has a diameter of 45 mm. Smaller, 33 mm, examples are also known, but they remain relatively heavy. As said, your coin has the inscription DiJiu 九第, “ninth”. I was originally confused, but the fragment you put at the bottom, is actually the top right part of the coin. Then it all adds up. Coole still included them in his catalogue, although he wrongly attributes them to the Zhou period. I have attached a couple of pictures. All these come from Coole’s catalogue, and the last piece is the one I handled, numbered “19” and rimless. I have not been able to find a good picture of a DiJiu 九第 token, but the top one actually has similar calligraphy on the Jiu 九character. Do you agree with my attribution? Concerning the age of this piece; they seemingly date to the (Western) Han. They are often found in tombs dating to this period, but almost always in a larger set. I don’t have an awful lot of data concerning this type, but one tomb sported a set ranging from number 4 to 23. Another contained token with numbers ranging from 1 to 23, but with two missing. This, in my opinion, further proves their status as not being coins. What are the odds an entire set was pulled from circulation, all in the same condition? Besides the fact that it isn’t a coin, it still has an interesting story to tell. On top of that, they are quite rare. Ding priced them at 300 dollars in 1939, an astronomical amount back then. I do find it odd that it was found in this specific lot. How did it end up in a lot of broken coins, all being datable to a century prior to its supposed issuing date? Still, an amazing deal. I mean, you could sell those Ming knives for more than $27! That being said, I wish you the best of luck with finding out whether or not they are authentic. I am afraid I am of little help in this aspect. Although I do find that Lin round coin to look a little ‘off’. I can’t put my finger on what exactly looks off though…. Mika
Thank you Mika! I believe that answers my query, along with a history lesson as well. I had noticed this when I examined them last night. I decided it was not part of the coin. Something felt off, especially since it sounded like new-ish metal when I dropped it. These should be fun and interesting to examine more closely.
