China's First Commemorative Coin Warring States Period - Qi 齊 State. Six characters knife coin. In archaic script. With the Chinese Character Ri 日 (meaning sun) on its obverse. This coin, cast in the shape of a knife, was commissioned by Duke Xiang, who ruled the State of Qi from 283 to 265 BC. Xiang was enthroned at a time when the state had lost all its territory but two cities. After years of bitter battles under Xiang’s steady leadership, Qi retrieved all its lands including its capital city. In celebration of the victory, Qi minted a set of coins, which became the earliest commemorative coins in Chinese history. They are generally named according to the number of Chinese characters inscribed on their front surface – in threes, fours, fives and sixes.
nice, are you able to read the script? BTW I keep wanting to ask you about your avatar. I am curious about it but don't see anywhere where you have described it
I am green with envy. What a beautiful coin...uhm knife...uhm knife coin. And from the Warring States period too. Awesome!
Thank you.. my avatar is another one of my top favorites. . It is not a coin but rather a silver medal issued by the Qing imperial government. Agriculture and commerce ministry 1st class..
Wikipedia has a lot less info on this ruler than you provided. If you have access to reputable sources, perhaps you should edit his wikipedia page and add this knife coin to the page while you are at it.
WOW !! That's so cool!! I've seen examples of them on auction from time to time but haven't purchased one as yet.. What are the dimensions??? I have to assume they are relatively small...or are they??
This coin is pretty interesting for the fact that 2 variants of the 6 characters exists..at least on auctions.. I have another where the characters were different. I need to check the dimensions again.. As for the knives.. many variants exists.. even these Qing knives were distinguished by the number of characters.. the lesser characters are very high in demand but commands a lower premium than the 6 character ones. Hartill listed these at 5 which is very rare but not extremely rare.. at auctions check for the number of characters. . They make a difference
I actually copied and took the description from some auction sites which once had these listed.. I can't remember which but need to recheck. . Wikipedia is only a reasonable reference starting point.. but not entirely complete..
cool LS, i've seen ones like this...but not the "pointy" one in your other thread. i'd like to get one of these some day, they are on the list.
All the best.. But there are also different versions of the flathead ones too... The most common are the Ming ( not dynasty) knives...
if by "Commemorative" you meant having text the earliest chinese examples of those should be the short/fat type of bubi (shovel coin), predates knife coins by around 3 centuries. Metal shell coins predated those by another 5 centuries and there were a few with inscriptions I thought. Problem with Chinese coins is that they were all casts. Too hard to tell fakes and the Chinese didn't became good forgers just yesterday
Think of it as an equivalent of a modern coin in commemorative of some event. Chinese coinage predates this by hundreds of years when taking into consideration proto-money like cowries. The text means in commemoration of the establishment of the Qi State. Not referring to the appearance of texts which definitely predates these by many many years
