Since I have not been buying ancient coins much lately I decided to dig out a group of Chinese (mostly) cash I have had for a while and see if I could ID them all using Hartill, Cast Chinese Coins. I know I am not cut out to be a cash specialist and will not be buying the expensive rarities that interest several of out CT posters but I thought I might enjoy learning something from the coins that never gave a fair chance back when the group came my way. So far, most seem to have gone pretty well but there are many duplicates which will require me to learn more to be sure they actually are duplicates of possibly minor variations I am too new to appreciate/understand. I see various references using different transliterations of names but decided to use data from Hartill (the largest book I have on the subject). I am photographing the coins and wonder if there is any convention I should observe as to the axis orientation of the reverse on coins with no reverse type. Is 12 o'clock correct? One that is fighting me is below. It seems to resemble Shao Xing yuan bao H17.41 (Seal script) but the Xing does not look at all like the Hartill drawing. The top part of that character looks close enough I could accept it but the lower half is not. The top of the character is a bit more like the drawing for the regular script coins lacking the central part between the two outside devices but mine shows the left sides of the two connected rather than the two inside corners. I feel the lack of proper terms that would describe these elements and make sense to someone who knows the subject. Hartill separates small, Regular script coins into official and unofficial so I could see that this may be an unofficial, large, Seal coin but is that character correctly called Xing? While I would appreciate having a proper ID, I would more like o know what I missed that should have enabled me to handle this one myself. When I said 10,000 questions, I may have just meant 'many' but I am not all that certain that I won't exceed that number of total questions before I get through the heap of coins. So far I only have a two ID failures (of which I know) an the nagging question of how to tell a minor difference that means nothing from one more significant that should allow me to know something about the coin (mint, date, unofficial, fake???). I thank anyone who has the patience to answer this first (and even the rest) of my questions.
I picked up a few lots of Northern Song cash coins back in the day of "ol' gnarly". I always thought it was kind of weird when the square hole didn't fit in proper orientation with the little raised square that is supposed to surround it.
Hello Doug You need to be looking at page 143 of Hartill - N. Sung Your coin is amongst 16.290 - 16.293 Yuan Yu (I think - though it seems a bit heavy? I would expect about 3.8g for a single - maybe this a smallish double - 16.303?) Rob T
I can’t think of a regular-issue cash coin right now that did not have medsl orientation. It is a Shao Sheng Yuan Bao from the Northern Song. It appears to be a 1-cash. That is Wade-Giles vs Pinyin. Pinyin is the most “modern” form and most accepted, and it is what Hartill uses.
The problem with this aspect is transliteration. I know, some may not know what that is and the difference between translation. Thats not unusual, often people think it is the same. Translation is the process of converting one language to another. Transliteration is taking one language (like Chinese, Egyptian, etc) and attempting to assign another cultures values when there is no association or relation. The symbol for the Chinese 'Wu' has no equivalent. Its unique to its culture (though some will argue it has other similarities here and there, but no, the big picture is no relation to anything). Our 'western' way of thinking translates "wu", a single Chinese character, into two symbols, regardless of pronunciation. And pronunciation is the key issue here. Wade-Giles was in the past far more accurate to western thinking and pronunciation. But as with academia one cannot make a name for themselves without turning day into night and so we ended up with Pinyin. Now, 'Ch' is synonymous with 'Q' and 'X' despite that in western cultures it doest have those values anywhere and never did (or in few places anyway). It can be frustrating. Basically a very few people created something of which neither culture would ever fully understand. This can be seen in many other cultures. Irish and Welsh come to mind where Olgam was transliterated into Latin characters, but with no understanding at all of pronunciation.
Many thanks to all. I will be starting other threads as questions arise but this one does have a spin off. Repeating the image to avoid scrolling: The one thing I thought was obvious was that a coin 30mm in diameter would be a 'Large Coin' by Hartill's terms and this one does lay down exactly covering his H16.303 illustration. This one he calls "Small size" under the heading "Large coins" which seems like the old term "Jumbo shrimp". "Smallish double" would seem to apply to the coin as I see it and fits Hartill's Small Large description. That leads to the question of how significant are the weights and sizes of these coins? Obviously there are periods recorded in the catalogs as coming in various sizes and coins that were issued over long periods that would be expected to vary a lot but how consistent are the coins made on the same day at the same furnace or even on the same tree? I note rather few references to weight in catalogs. Is, then, weight not a valuable tool in studying these coins? I posted more digits than would seem significant.
Not very. At least not really. Hmm. Confusing? Single cash coins of the period are pretty standard at just 25mm (some period prior, say Tang, are pretty standard at 24mm, but other contemporary are 26mm). The weights really mean nothing. Most are not out of the norm for each denomination (one or two cash). True, some coins can be double the weight of average, and I have had countless of them, but they do not relate to value (then or now). Some argue for the concept of a Three Cash denomination, but while I subscribed to such a concept years ago after decades of handling them they dont seem to exist. Some are just larger and heavier, or heavier and smaller, and all the variations. I'm being simplistic as there are many distinct variations, especially with Wang Mang and his reforms which were at least 1,000 years before his time with a fiduciary system. But to sum up at the time size was more important than weight. I have no doubt that large transactions would have been weighed, but for smaller day to day business the size what was mattered most.
In my hasty look up I got the numbers right and the legend wrong : -(. Anyhow - Ken is right about the weights from a collector's point of view, but there is a bit more to say from the point of view of the economics of it all. I just fished out a bag of similar coins that are to hand - this time Shao Sheng (!) 16.307-10. According to the traditional understanding the Tang fixed the Tael at 10 single cash - and it was about 41g. If you weight 10 early Kai Yuans you should find this to be correct. I have 34 of 16.307+ in front of me - and I put 10 on the scale and got 36g. Actually if I put all 34 on the scale the average is 36.1g. So the randomising effect of taking ten basically gives you the "right answer". However if you weight them separately then the weight range is very big. From 2.9g to 4.2g. That is what "al marco" is all about. In this case the mint took a very exact number of catties of metal and cast a very exact number of cash from it. But they just did not care about the weight of the individual coins. Further, there has been a slow sort of inflation of the gross weight since Tang times - both in the standard of the tael, and the weight of the circulating coins - about 5 grams in total. Thus 12% over more than 4 centuries. (that now happens in 4 years - not 4 centuries - to GBP - sob sob) Rob T PS - will say something about Wade Giles etc in a new thread: Kuan Tzu vs Guanzi
