On December 20, I ordered a book (Hartill, Cast Chinese Coins) from Amazon books and selected their free Super Saver Shipping. The computer estimated delivery on December 29 which was fine with me since I have much too much to do this week and was not giving the book as a Christmas gift. My last mail delivery Saturday included the book - 4 days or 5 days ahead of schedule. I have always been of the opinion that paying extra for faster delivery is a waste but this was a bit of a shock. I doubt it would have worked out that way had the book been a gift for my wife. The problem is that the post office did not also deliver some free time so I have barely looked at the book. I have a few hundred cash accumulated over the years mostly from the back of Frank Robinson's lists so I have plenty of ID work to do. As far as I know all of my coins are the most common varieties and I'll be lucky if I find even a hundred different since most were bought as batches (just why did I want a lot of ten Kai Yuan?) but my current state of mind does not allow buying cash for high prices just because they have some extra dot or squiggle. I would appreciate hearing from any others who have interest in low end cash (and/or might want to trade duplicates). I figure I'll have photos to share eventually but if I don't get back to doing my Christmas Day photos, I'll be in trouble so it may not be for a few days.
Lot of people love to gripe about the PO, but I have found from personal experience that they give me the best service and value for my money. BTW I ordered a couple of German coins from a particular Massachusetts based seller on Thursday and had them waiting for me at my PO Saturday morning, priority mail 2-3 day service. BTW I like those infernal Chinese cash coins too, just a lot of fun to pick through and find exciting stuff in dealer's junk boxes for 25 cents or the equivalent - and then ID it and find out it is over a 1000 years old from the Tang Dynasty.
Saturday was the same for me 3 out of 4 items I ordered came. I always keep an eye for cash coins in junk boxes too, I always just miss them by a day or so though
I had my first issue with the PO this past week. Ordered a roman coin book, was shipped from WA. priority. Arrived near my area 2 days later then it went missing for 3 days and ended up in Iowa, then days later it arrived near me again then 2 days later it to CO then days later near me for it to finally arrive. Over a week and cross country treck for 2-3 day package. Author is giving me another copy for my troubles, UPS this time which will be here tomorrow, lol.
I think you may be surprised how many different varieties you have Doug. Kai Yuan have many varieties, and I have found many not even in Hartill. I am like you having batches from Frank, but also other sellers using the "good list" of Ebay sellers I have posted previously. I believe you will love the book once you get a chance to go over it. Btw, I just posted a mini review of Hartill's new Japanese book on the thread on numismatic books I just started if you are interested. Chris
We each just got a different Hartill book. This was the first of my cash that I happened to pick up and try to find. I think I did correctly but am not sure. What do any of you other cash people see here? The reverse is plain.
Looks Japanese to me, Hartill 25.62 in his Chinese book. Dang Doug, I thought it was Northern Sung, got me flipping through, then went to the finding source to find out it was Japanese. I thought it looked familiar, I have some but haven't looked at them for a while.
I have my fingers and toes crossed hoping you got it right. The inscription reads yuan feng tong bao which was used on coins cast during the reign of Emperor Shen Zong (1068-1085) of the Northern Song Dynasty. Yuan feng tong bao are among the most common of the Chinese Song Dynasty cash coins. However, this coin is not Chinese. The calligraphy is "regular or orthodox script" (kai shu Hartill page v). Coins cast during Emperor Shen Zong's reign were written in "seal", "running" or "li" script. I am not very familiar with Japanese coins but I believe it is a "Nagasaki export" coin. Hartill shows one example (25.62) on page 434. The coin might also be from Annam (Vietnam) since it is my understanding that it can sometimes be difficult differentiating the Japanese and Vietnamese versions of the coin except by size and weight. Professor Roberts provides some background information and a number of examples of these coins at his website. Hoping you got it correct because it was a tricky one. Gary
That was my guess. My problem is that were it not for the note in the Sung section relating to the top of the feng I would have no idea why it might be Japanese. The coin was one of the mixed N.Sung I got from the Robinson sale. I have no idea how many others are not original.
Instead of relying on that note, I use the emperor finding listing in the first part of the book. It list them in stroke number order, and then check the actual rubbings to find a match. It would be much easier if I read Chinese, but you get the hang of it. To be fair to Frank, it is a very common N Sung coin, just not in that caligraphy. Gary had a much more thorough answer, I just beat him by 30 seconds or so.
