I recently acquired several Asian coins that were mixed in with several other coins from around the world. I found several sites that have pictures of coins, but never could really match up the markings. I hope someone could shed a little light on the subject. (I hope I did the picture upload correctly)
Thanks for the link. The original file was too large. I rushed and did this before going to work and didn't pay any attention to the size. These probably aren't the best pictures, but I hope they are enough for you to give me some information. I didn't take a picture of one of the backs, because it was very worn and wouldn't come through clearly. Thanks again for your help.
All are Qing (Ch'ing) Dynasty (1644-1911) coins from China: 1) "jia qing tong bao" cast during the reign of Emperor Ren Zong (1796-1820) 2) "guang xu tong bao" struck during the reign of Emperor De Zong (1875-1908) 3) same as #1 above 4) cast at Board of Revenue mint in Peking (Beijing) 5) struck at Guangzhou mint in Guangdong Province Gary
Alrighty, I think those are good enough for on of our experts on coins like this to be able to identify it. I am not good with ancient coins, but I can tell you that many people here do, they should be able to tell you what it is and value. Good luck
Thank you for the responses. I have looked at many different types of coins at different events, and I really like the international coinage. The only problem...I know nothing about it. I just find the coins and their history interesting. Anyway, thanks again for the help.
geographic, political, economics, history & numismatic info I recommend the Standard Catalog of World Coins by Krause. It is the size of a large city phone book & includes bazillions of photographs. It contains a wealth of information. Very best regards, collect89
Gary, For coins 1 and 3 I came up with: JEN TSUNG (1796-1820) Reign title: CHAI-CH'ING, AD 1796-1820 Is that the same thing? I have the same coin (I think). Mine looks like this (attached). -Daniel
Hi Daniel, Yes, it is the same coin although it may be a different variety or cast at a different mint. To provide a guide to pronunciation of Chinese characters to non-Chinese speakers, several "romanization" systems have been invented over the last couple of centuries. By "romanization", I mean using a Latin-based alphabet to provide an approximation of the pronunciation of Chinese characters. From about 1850-1900 a romanization system called Wade-Giles evolved and was considered the "standard" until about the middle of the last century. Since then, another system called "pinyin" or "hanyu pinyin" has become dominant. "Pinyin" is the romanization system used in China and is now almost universally considered the "standard". The romanization system I use is pinyin and the one you quoted is the older Wade-Giles. For example: "Ren Zong" in pinyin is the same as "Jen Tsung" in Wade-Giles. "Jia qing" in pinyin is the same as "Chai-Ch'ing" in Wade-Giles. (Actually, I think the correct spelling should be "Chia" instead of "Chai".) The secret is knowing the pronunciation rules which goes with each romanization system. Chinese scholars know the pronunciation rules for each system but the general public, of course, would not know the rules and therefore would not recognize that the pronunciation of these words is the same. Incidentally, you may have noticed that when I said the coins were from the Qing (Ch'ing) Dynasty that I included the old Wade-Giles romanization (Ch'ing). This is because many people recognize the old Wade-Giles spelling "Ch'ing" but may not be aware that the word is now spelled "Qing" in pinyin. Finally, as in illustration of the difficulties of trying to convert Chinese characters to a Latin alphabet, the "Ch'ing" used to refer to the name of the dynasty and the "Ch'ing" used on your particular coin, even though they are spelled exactly the same, are actually very different Chinese characters with very different meanings. Hope you find the above helpful, Gary
