well, i picked these up before i got back on the wagon and have been cleaning them up...i have several more still in the drink to post some time in the future. the one on the upper right i didn't clean, it was already in great shape. notice that it is a bit smaller (24mm), that one is a cash coin. xi ning yaun bao, seal script 1 cash emperor shen zong 1068-1085ad the rest of the larger coins are "2 cash coin"... i think. bottom right... xi ning zhng bao, seal script and left of it... xi ning zhong bao, orthodox script both 1071-1077ad emperor sheng zong top left is a xuan he tong bao emperor hui zong 1101-1125ad if any of my atributions are incorrect, please let me know.
I usually have zero-interest in these Asian washers, but I must admit that I'm slightly attracted to your chrsma71 offerings!!? ... huh, maybe I'm maturing, eh? (doubtful ... but maybe I'll man-up and take a gander at these thingies?!!) => cheers!! (congrats on your new pick-ups!!)
thanks guys....it took me a while to warm up to them also stevex, but i've aquired the taste i suppose. just distilled water and a needle, some of them had some loose dirty/sand on them...that's all that came off. i have before pics of the coins, and they don't really luck much different than the after pics...just less "dusty" maybe.
Hey Chris, sorry to say I have zero interest in Asian coins either. However, I support all of you guys who do have collections which include these cash coins. Good on ya.
I was amazed to find out that China had an economy with these coins for a thousand years. They were what people used to buy things. Of course if it was something big, like a house they would pay with huge strings of them. It was all ruined when the West showed up and demanded payment in gold and silver.
a couple more northern song washers i cleaned up... left: huan song tong bao emperor ren zhong (1039-1063ad) 1 cash 25mm, 4.1g hartill 16.111 right: jing de yuan bao emperor zhen zong 988-1022ad 1 cash 26mm 3.5 g hartill 16.49 please correct me if my attribution is incorrect.
I am not an expert in these, but your first pic I do not like the smaller coin. The "shen" is not right in my eyes. Look how the characters run into the border and not very balanced with the rest of the coin. I would suspect either either a contemporary counterfeit or a modern one, or possibly an ancient clip making the characters out of line with the rest of the coin. Balance was very important in these, and great care was taken to achieve it. Its something lost on those who do not collect them. Like Byzantine coins, (which many ancient collectors also eschew), you need to study them more to appreciate the finer points of the series. Just my opinion though. Hopefully GXSeries or other more knowledgable collectors of cash will weigh in.
Well, the Xi Ning could be fine and its just the wear throwing me off. I would say Hartill 16.171 if its fine. Its listed as r-15(common) so no real reason to counterfeit it. See, even people with a passing acquaintance of these have to be careful. Sorry if I worried you.
I'll be honest - I'm not the person with regards to cash coins and I'm slowly warming up to them. Some of these cash coin prices are shooting faster than a rocket taking off! I can see where medoraman is coming from - while I know it's a seal script plus I'm not familiar with this type of coin, I'm not too sure if I have seen one similar to it. Have to check that out. The good side of this kind of coins are that they are still affordable but requires a lot of patience identifying them. I personally find the seal and Mongolian script to be challenging. Of course you have coins from Sinkiang (Xinjiang) where some coins are in Arabic scripts. And then you also need to factor in the impact of this particular type of coin - heavily influenced Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia. Wow. These coins were cast in a lot of metals that you can think of - the usual is copper, lead, iron, silver (scarce), gold (rare), traces of antimony, tin etc. You'll never know what is in them. I have a small stash of them that I haven't gone through yet - I know it's not on omnicoin yet. I just haven't bothered with them for years. I had an allergic reaction to some of the coins. I didn't identify which one but it did sting. Now this is very very interesting as I have handled coins in various metals from antimony to zinc. Sounds strange - I've handled nickel and cobalt which are the two most common metal that causes allegries. Ever since then, I guess I just left them alone. What I find it interesting is that the mints / furnances back then had a good idea of metal economics and are very price sensitive over two thousand years of history. They would use any metal at their disposal to cast coinage and this would have an impact on local economy. You'll have some smarter crooks that would melt down coins with higher copper content for profit (sounds familar?) and recast coins in cheaper bronze / tin alloy. Some coins would look pale yellow to red or rusted color. Bells or even Buddha statues would be melted down just to make coins or vice versa - interesting times. Wikipedia has a good article - takes a while to go through the whole lot. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Chinese_coinage I'll have some Chinese cash coins coming up for discussion. Probably not as great as chrsmat71's collection.
JA, i sent you a pm about another thread, let me know if you didn't get it. please feel free to worry me, i'm not certain about anything with these chinese coins. some could be fake, but considering how common they are and how little i paid, i wouldn't be upset much...but would certainly like to know if they are. the xi ning looks pretty similar to this one, which also has some of the script bleeding into the rim... http://primaltrek.com/flowerhole.html#xi_ning_yuan_bao_seal_script i think it ok also...but not sure. gxs...yes, patience is certainly a virtue with these things. these sapped all the the patience i have i think! i don't think i've got the ..."coins" shall we say, to dive into a deep study of these. coin allergies!!! oh man!
These are not so bad if you get Hartill. Its affordable and a godsend for English speaking collectors of cash. You are lucky, I had to start with Fishers Ding. I go in and out of cash, currently out, so I am not really up to date with common northern sung. I still pick up little pretties like five kingdoms or iron issues, but haven't looked at my northern sung in ages I am afraid. I still say its a great series and still affordable. Buy the $45 book and have a good time. I still say the shen of that coin is goofy, there are tons of coins of that emperor and only that coin has an uneasy shen. I wouldn't be surprised if they came from some provincial mint, yet its listed as a R15.......weird. Btw, I apologize for confusing you with our cash expert GX, and of course apologize to our resident cash experts as well. Chris
med, how could you ever confuse me with an expert!? it's ok, i got this thread confused with another and posted a head up to john anthony here....i can't multi-task anymore.
It's ok Medoraman - at least you remembered that I exist on this forum. You might be able to guess that I diversity over all kinds (except ancients) and I'm slowly bunching into Chinese cash coins. I guess the other areas that I diversified into are getting too expensive hence I'm poking my head into this area. (might be looking for trouble?) I was lucky to obtain these a few years ago. These coins were issued during the chaotic Taiping Rebellion where inflation just blew out of control. Weighting at 35.1 and 35.6 grams respectively. These are a lot larger than the standard cash and this is an example to compare their size I think the Lincoln cent is slightly smaller than the Australian 5 cent but you get the picture - it's clearly larger than any cash coin. Funnily enough, I didn't think much of them. Why did I get them then? Because they looked the most funky out of the junk coin lot and I knew at that time they were larger than standard cash coin. Plus it wasn't that expensive back then - I was a kitchenhand and I wasn't earning a fortune. Here's an article if you are interested in them. http://www.thecurrencycollector.com/pdfs/Taiping_Rebellion_Money_Part_I-b.pdf Sneaky preview: I do have an entire set of the Chinese poem coins coming in. More information can be seen here: http://ykleungn.tripod.com/kanghsia.htm This is a lot more difficult than what many think. Just when I bought these coins recently, some of these coins that I've been watching have gone up quite rapidly.
I have a fascination for old Chinese coins, guess their simplicity is their charm. Also, the lunar series coins that a number of government mints produce are creative representation of the Chinese culture. Recently, I got to know that the Royal Mint, U.K. struck the 2013 Lunar Series Britannia, celebrating the snake year with a privy mark rim struck eight times with the iconic Year of the Snake emblem from the Chinese Lunar Calendar. What’s even more amazing is that the British Mint has never, ever struck a coin like this in its minting history of 1,100 years!!
... I was lucky to obtain these a few years ago. These coins were issued during the chaotic Taiping Rebellion where inflation just blew out of control. Unfortunately, both these coins have "issues". The first coin (Value 300) was only cast at the Prince Qing Hui Mint and only for a period of a few months. It is extremely rare. According to several reference books, on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being the rarest, it is a 1. I have a Chinese reference book describing the Xianfeng coins in the collection of Mr. Ma Dingxiang who was one of the most famous Chinese numismatists of the last century. This book includes rubbings of the two varieties of this coin known to exist. Regrettably, your coin does not match either of these varieties. Also, as best I can tell from your images, the color and patina are highly suspect. I was unable to find an image of an authentic specimen on the internet which is not surprising considering how rare the coin is. There are many images of fakes, however. This specimen is probably close to what an authentic piece would look like. The author of the article claims it is authentic but there are slight differences in calligraphy between this coin and the rubbings from authentic coins so I seriously doubt its authenticity. Regarding the second coin, it is so poorly cast that the denomination is essentially illegible. My guess is that it is a "Value 50" since I do not know what other denomination it could be. A coin this poorly cast would not have come from the official Board of Revenue mint. It is either a contemporary or modern reproduction. As a matter of interest, the Xianfeng Emperor reigned from 1851 to 1861. However, he issued an enormous variety of coins during this short period of time. The book on Mr. Ma Dingxiang's collection of Xianfeng coins includes rubbings from 4,114 different varieties! I knew collectors in China who had very large collections but specialized in collecting only Xianfeng coins. Gary
here's a new one i just finished cleaning up, not a bad lookin' coin.. zheng he tong bao, seal script emperor hui zong 111-1117 27 mm, 4.1 g 1 cash or 2 cash...not sure? hartril 16.429 (n0t sure about this?)
