About 25" long OA. Yep, I should post close-ups of an obverse and reverse, not that there's much detail. I wonder how, after clipping from the 'tree', these were finished...hand-ground, or tumbled, or?? Some have grains of sand still adhered. Are these common in this as-made form? Thanks
These two coins (Iron & Bronze) were packed with the tree...significance unknown. Sorry about the orientation...I'm guessing, of course.
From the images provided it is almost impossible to be certain but I'm pretty sure it is a "Chinese Coin Tree" as opposed to a "Japanese Money Tree". Please see my article "Chinese Money Trees" explaining the difference between "coin trees" and "money trees". From the faint outlines of the characters I believe the coins on the coin tree are tongzhi tongbao (同治通寶). Tongzhi tongbao coins were cast during the reign of Emperor Mu Zong (1862-1874) of the Qing Dynasty. Please compare the coins on your coin tree with this typical tongzhi tongbao coin to see if the identification is correct. The images do not provide enough detail for me to identify which mint cast your coin tree. The two separate coins are also Chinese but have the inscription daoguang tongbao (道光通寶) which means they were cast during the reign of Emperor Xuan Zong (1821-1850) of the Qing Dynasty. I cannot vouch for the authenticity of your coin tree. I have not checked but, as far as I know, there were no iron coins cast with the inscription tongzhi tongbao. Gary
Iron Coin Tree: Details Hard for me to get decent oblique lighting on these...the sun has gone away again. Sigh. I hope these are legible. Provenance is only that Dad's brother brought the tree back from Japan in 1952 on his return from 6-7 years in Kyoto. If you're correct about no iron coins having been cast with tongzhi tongbao inscription...are these then fake, or counterfeit? I can't get my head around going to the trouble to fake such low-value coinage. Perhaps they were made for display purposes...decorator items? Your article 'Chinese Money Trees' was fascinating, and thought-provoking: Very Nicely Done! Thanks...
I can't make out the detail of the "tree" coins either,but I'm 99 & 44/100% sure they are Chinese, both because the manchu script on the loose coins clearly marks them as Chinese, and the style of the casting. Typical Japanese castings have three "stalks" with 16 coins on each side. According to my research the Japanese practice was to break the individual coins off of the tree and stack them on a square wooden stick so that the stubs could be ground off and the edges polished. I would assume the same procedure was followed in China.
It's very probably genuine, but there's a slight possibility that it is a contemporary counterfeit which the caster failed to separate and finish. IMHO it's of far too little value to be a phony collector item.
Were the coins attached to the stalk that closely? The only ones I have seen for sale had about a cm sprue between the coin and the stalk. That is what makes me nervous about these, but I admit I have never seen an iron tree. It would appear a great many coins coming off this tree would have a very flat side, something I do not see much of on iron coins.
What I don't know about Chinese coins has already filled a lot of books! Japanese trees do have a short section of the sprue between the coin and the stalk.
