Hi people! My mom found a very odd coin,when she was cleaning out some boxes. Could you experts perhaps give us more info about it and if it has some value to it? My first guess would be that the text is arabic,but It could also be traditional .....Chinese.
My guess (and it's just a guess) would be an Iching coin. See also: http://altreligion.about.com/library/glossary/symbols/bldefsiching.htm for a brief "about.com" article.
It's a cash coin, probably Chinese. They were cast in bronze (mostly), copper, brass and iron for more than 1,000 years, to approximately 1940. Other countries producing them included Japan, Korea and Annam (~present day Vietnam). It is definitely not Japanese or Korean, but I'm not very familiar with Annamese coins, and with the lack of the Manchu script appearing on most Chinese coins, it just might be Annamese. The amount of wear on some of the characters makes it even harder to locate in the reference works by someone who doesn't read Chinese. BTW it is money, not a fortune telling or feng shui charm as adelv_unegv guessed. The square center hole has a very utilitarian purpose. This type of coin is cast in "trees", groups from which they are then broken off and placed on a square rod, which keeps them from turning as the edges are filed smooth, eliminating the small protuberance where they were joined.
