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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;AnYangMan, post: 3152817, member: 87271&quot;]This lot still continues to amaze me for several reasons. I’d say that is an excellent analysis, just a few extra points.</p><p><br /></p><p>One thing I think you should not exclude is the Jiuling 酒令 drinking game cash. These have been dated, both archaeologically and stylistically, to the mid-western Han dynasty. And judging on the patina, this would have been part of the same hoard as the other fragments. But all the other fragments date from around a century earlier! Abnormal, to say the least.</p><p><br /></p><p>Individually, these coins are more than extremely rare, with most specimens appearing on the market only sporadically. But the odds that these would pop up in a single hoard, together, without repetition, without any sign of any less rare coins (save one <i>Yuan </i>fragment), would seem astronomically small. Throw in the <i>Jiuling</i> cash, and you’ve gotten yourself an interesting mystery. A coin-collector’s stash could be possible, it would certainly explain the non-repetitionary nature and possibly the inclusion of the <i>Jiuling </i>token, but you’d need to know something about the rest of the hoard to safely assume this. Another possibility could be that the <i>Jiuling </i>cash was not part of the original hoard, but was later deposited on the same site and during ploughing got mixed in. This would be consistent with the plough marks seen on some of the coins, but still does not explain the strange content of the pre-<i>Han </i>portion.</p><p><br /></p><p>You are in a much better position to judge the authenticity of these fragments, but I see no red flags, besides their rarity. Patina looks good, as does the calligraphy. How is their relief compared to other examples? I’d take an extra good look at the breaks that split a character, the second <i>Gong Tun Chi</i> <i>Jin</i> and the<i> Lin</i> fragment. I assume both breaks are crystallised and thus ancient? If so, does the relief of the character stay consistent the closer you get to the break? Or does it get “flatter”?</p><p><br /></p><p>I’d say that without any additional information concerning the provenance of this lot, speculating is all we can do. We can think of the wildest scenarios concerning ancient coin collectors (and it is definitely fun to do so), but at the end of the day it is just speculation. Have you asked our Chinese friend where he acquired this lot?</p><p><br /></p><p>Mika</p><p><br /></p><p>Ps. The slightly slanted top-stroke of Liang, in combination with the trapezoidal shape of the lower half, would seem to prove that the <i>Liang </i>fragment is indeed part of a <i>Zhong Yi Liang Shi Er Zhu</i> 重一两十二铢, rather than a <i>Ban Liang</i>.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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