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<p>[QUOTE="robinjojo, post: 8339863, member: 110226"]I'll try to take some snaps of the 50 taels sycee over the weekend.</p><p><br /></p><p>My understanding is that the sycee, at least in the 19th-20th centuries, and perhaps earlier, were made of melted Latin American 8 reales, primarily Mexican I would imagine. Since the coins have a uniform fineness, 0.9030 for the Mexican 8 reales and later pesos, that would be the fineness of the ingot. </p><p><br /></p><p>As you have seen the weights of the ingots can vary, with few if any at a "spot on" even weight using the tael standard of around 40 grams. I need to pull out my scyees and weigh them again, but as I recall my saddleback ingot is around 4.5 taels.</p><p><br /></p><p>You're right about fakes abounding. The sycees that I have were purchased a few decades back from reliable sources: Rick Ponterio and Scott Semans. Ponterio has been affiliated with Stacks & Bowers for many years now. Scott still maintains a website, and he is the go-to authority on Asian coinage and sycee, as is Steve Album.</p><p><br /></p><p>Here's a link to Scott's fascinating website. He has an amazing array of "primitive" and non-Western money, along with more modern issues.</p><p><br /></p><p><a href="https://coincoin.com/directory.htm" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://coincoin.com/directory.htm" rel="nofollow">https://coincoin.com/directory.htm</a>[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>
[QUOTE="robinjojo, post: 8339863, member: 110226"]I'll try to take some snaps of the 50 taels sycee over the weekend. My understanding is that the sycee, at least in the 19th-20th centuries, and perhaps earlier, were made of melted Latin American 8 reales, primarily Mexican I would imagine. Since the coins have a uniform fineness, 0.9030 for the Mexican 8 reales and later pesos, that would be the fineness of the ingot. As you have seen the weights of the ingots can vary, with few if any at a "spot on" even weight using the tael standard of around 40 grams. I need to pull out my scyees and weigh them again, but as I recall my saddleback ingot is around 4.5 taels. You're right about fakes abounding. The sycees that I have were purchased a few decades back from reliable sources: Rick Ponterio and Scott Semans. Ponterio has been affiliated with Stacks & Bowers for many years now. Scott still maintains a website, and he is the go-to authority on Asian coinage and sycee, as is Steve Album. Here's a link to Scott's fascinating website. He has an amazing array of "primitive" and non-Western money, along with more modern issues. [URL]https://coincoin.com/directory.htm[/URL][/QUOTE]
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A Chinese sycee from Yunnan Province
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