New ancient Chinese guy here!

Frank Robinson has a good selection of Chinese cash on his fixed price lists. Also, Steve Album tends to have some nice Chinese coins in his auctions, but those tend to be the scarce, higher-end types.

 

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Thanks!

 

A HEARTY welcome @AnYangMan ! That makes three of us now!

 

Thanks for your reply.

 

@Ken Dorney has fish money. I got mine from him. He even has some older fish money which was more detailed and showed the gills and other fish structures. Ask him about it.

 

Welcome here, AnYangMan, from a fellow Dutchman. How does a guy from the sleepy but venerable town of Vianen (huddled behind the great bridge over the river Lek) start into Chinese coins?
Well, don’t answer, for I don’t know why I started collecting medieval Central Asian coins, either. I’m not into Chinese coins, but I’m interested in borders, where peoples are meeting and fighting or mingling. So as a welcoming picture I can show you this 10th century cash coin from the farthest West of China, assigned to the region of Semirechye (just west of Kashgar) and issued by the forefathers of the islamic Qarakhanid dynasty. The inscriptions are in Kufi Arabic script, tentatively reading Malik Aram Yinal.



Diameter 24.5 mm, weight 4.03 gr. bronze. See Zeno #962 and here for readings and clarifications.
This is not an isolated cash coin, for the Sogdian merchants of the 7th and 8th century were issuing cash (round coin, square hole) with Sogdian script from people with curious names like Urk Wartamuk. But afterwards the Qarakhanids went islam and issued islamic-style coinage (that I’m collecting).
I hope to read more from you on CoinTalk!

 

Thanks for posting, @AnYangMan! Welcome to the ancients forum!

 

Thanks again to everyone for the incredibly warm welcomes!

@Parthicus Wow, I love that Liang-yi spade! From an older Chinese collection recently sold via Steve Album, right? I still need this inscription for my fangzubu collection, and yours is absolutely stunning! Congratulations! If you ever want to part with it… .

Fish money is indeed a fascinating subject. While it is generally accepted that the previous generations of numismatists were wrong in describing these fishes as ‘money’ (the same goes for Bridge-, shield- and grater-money), since we have no evidence of this, they are quite interesting. They haven’t been found in archaeological contexts too often, and when they have, they are found lying (sometimes neatly organised in a rectangle) around coffins. They are found primarily in the west of then inhabited China, primarily in what used to be the state of Guo in Shang/Western Zhou times, but others interpret them as being part of Ba/Shu burial culture. Anyway, it is most likely that these fishes indeed weren’t money (there are quite a few arguments to support this), but rather some kind of good luck-token for the afterlife, for fishes were considered lucky in these early cultures. In my opinion, they are still more than worth collecting, and I too have a few. @ancientcoinguru; one of my favourites, a rather simple shape, I have not seen too often. It is an ex-Jeff Young ‘coin’:



Nice to see that there is such an active community of Dutchies here as well! @Pellinore, that is indeed a beautiful coin. Coins like this, with an interesting story to tell, are precisely what the generalist in me likes.

Thanks again to everyone,

Mika

 

Thanks @AnYangMan, I appreciate the history behind these 'coins'! Even though they are probably not money, they are still very interesting items.

 

Welcome @AnYangMan Mika. I share your interests particularly on East Asian coins. Being Chinese, I am partisan to Chinese coins in particular as well as other civilisations adopting similar cultures. I have posted audit a number of my previous collections here in the past. However here are some of my favorite


Genghis Khan. Pre-Yuan Dynasty Precursor. Silver Da Chao Tong Bao


Huang Song Tong Bao. Northern Song. 9-folded script.


Abahai. Pre-Qing Dynasty. Sure Han Ni Jiha. 10 1 Liang. Old Manchu Script.


Western Xia. Tangut script. Da An Bao Qian.


Tang Dynasty. Qian Feng Quan Bao. Issued during the lifetime of the only female Emperor of China. Empress Wu Zetian.

 

Cool currency, @Alegandron !

 

WELCOME, @AnYangMan!

 

Doooooaaahhh! SILVER!!! Nice

 

A big thank you for the warm welcomes again! @Loong Siew, over the last couple of months, I’ve read a fair few of your topics, and admired your amazing and historical coins. I am especially fond of that Da Chao silver cash. I mean, wow, how rare is this type! And this has to be one of the best preserved specimens I have ever seen. I am sure you are familiar with them, but there have been a few publications on this type the past couple of years, by a Russian numismat who has studied this type intensely for the past few years. A classification has been attempted, with special focus on the reverse countermarks, which are present on virtually all Da Chao Tong Bao, in differing numbers (most have just one, while specimens with 6 countermarks are also known!). I am not quite sure what the two on your coin classify as, but they are interesting to say the least. The rest of the coins you posted are more than awesome as well!

 

Thank you. If you refer to Zeno, mine would fall under the category T1 U3.