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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;manymore, post: 866869, member: 17118&quot;]Your Chinese friends have actually proved the point.&nbsp; The calligraphy is so bad that even they cannot recognize the Chinese characters.&nbsp; It&#039;s not a question of the characters being worn, covered in patina, or not clear.&nbsp; It&#039;s that the characters are not written correctly.</p><p><br /></p><p>The truth of the matter is that there are <u>no</u> Chinese characters on the coin at all.</p><p><br /></p><p>We all seem to agree that the character on the left is <i>bao</i>.&nbsp; However, we are only &quot;guessing&quot; that it is <i>bao</i>.&nbsp; <i>Bao</i> is never written with two &quot;<i>wang</i> (king)&quot; characters side-by-side beneath the &quot;top hat&quot; as is the case with your coin.</p><p><br /></p><p>I know you have the Hartill book so let&#039;s use it for this discussion. If you look at pages <i>iv</i> and <i>v</i> you will see a variety of <i>bao</i> characters.&nbsp; <u>None</u> of them have two &quot;<i>wang</i>&quot; characters written side-by-side.&nbsp; So, what we are calling &quot;<i>bao</i>&quot; on the coin really is <u>not</u> &quot;<i>bao</i>&quot;.</p><p><br /></p><p>Your Chinese friends are incorrect about the bottom character being the number nine (<i>jiu</i>).&nbsp; If you look on page <i>xvi</i> of Hartill&#039;s book you will see that the number nine (jiu) is written in only two strokes. One stroke goes straight down and then sweeps to the left.&nbsp; The second stroke, beginning at the left, goes horizontal to the right and then immediately goes straight down and then rises upward at the very end.&nbsp; The second stroke that I just described is <u>one continuous stroke</u>.</p><p><br /></p><p>The bottom character on your coin, the character your Chinese friends say is nine (<i>jiu</i>), could not have been written in less than three strokes.&nbsp; You can see that the horizontal stroke stops.&nbsp; The stroke that goes downward and then back up at the end is completely separate from the horizontal stroke.&nbsp; If fact, it does not even touch the horizontal stroke and is even indented inwards to the left.</p><p><br /></p><p>No Chinese would ever write nine (<i>jiu</i>) in this manner.&nbsp; Ask your Chinese friends and see if they don&#039;t agree.</p><p><br /></p><p>However, we all know that <i>yuan</i> is <u>very</u> commonly found in this position on a coin.&nbsp; And, if someone did not know how to write Chinese very well, he might very easily write <i>yuan</i> the way it is on your coin.</p><p><br /></p><p>If you look at the <i>yuan</i> character on Hartill&#039;s 16.52 &quot;<i>xiang fu yuan bao</i>&quot; rubbing you will see that it is &quot;similar&quot; to that on your coin.&nbsp; It is definitely not a number &quot;nine&quot;.</p><p><br /></p><p>Also, I have never seen nine (<i>jiu</i>) written in the inscription of a Chinese coin.&nbsp; The only place you will see it is on the reverse side of Southern Song coins, and perhaps others, to indicate the year of the reign title.&nbsp; If you look at such examples in Hartill&#039;s book you will find that nine is only written the way I described above.&nbsp; You will not find an example where the right downward stroke is disconnected from the end of the horizontal stroke as is the case with your coin.</p><p><br /></p><p>Your Chinese friends confirm that they cannot read the character to the right of the square hole but that it is similar to &quot;<i>fu</i>&quot;.&nbsp; Again, none of the characters on the coin are written correctly so if your intention is to figure out what the inscription is meant to be then you will have to make your best guess.&nbsp; My best guess, and I think even your friend&#039;s best guess, would be that the character was meant to be &quot;<i>fu</i>&quot;.</p><p><br /></p><p>Finally, your Chinese friends cannot read the top character.&nbsp; That&#039;s because, like the other characters on the obverse, it is not written correctly and therefore is not, strictly speaking, Chinese.&nbsp; My best guess is that this character is &quot;<i>xiang</i>&quot; which it resembles.</p><p><br /></p><p>I believe that the inscription on the obverse side was intended to be a real historical coin inscription but written by someone who clearly could not write Chinese correctly (or perhaps had other reasons to make the characters appear difficult to comprehend).&nbsp; The only inscription that I am aware of that would come even close to resembling the &quot;characters&quot; on your coin is &quot;<i>xiang fu yuan bao</i>&quot; for the reasons stated above.</p><p><br /></p><p>I did not comment about the coin&#039;s very broad rim in my first post.&nbsp; There is a very rare and famous variety of &quot;<i>xiang fu yuan bao</i>&quot; with a very broad rim such as on your coin.&nbsp; Hartill identifies it as 16.56 on page 131.&nbsp; I believe your coin is intended to mimic this variety, and in so doing provides additional proof that the inscription on your coin is intended to be, or based on, &quot;<i>xiang fu yuan bao</i>&quot;.</p><p><br /></p><p>I feel that your coin, with the illegibly written Chinese on the obverse and the Manchu on the reverse, is not a &quot;real&quot; coin but rather a fantasy piece for all the reasons I have discussed.</p><p><br /></p><p>Your Chinese friends cannot read it, either, and it is not because they cannot see the characters clearly.&nbsp; I doubt that better scans will make any difference.&nbsp; The fact is that the characters on the obverse are not really Chinese so the best one can do is &quot;guess&quot;.</p><p><br /></p><p>It has been fun discussing this coin but, as I said in my first post, the best I can do is &quot;guess&quot; what the inscription was &quot;modeled&quot; after.</p><p><br /></p><p>I look forward to seeing what other forum members may think the inscription is.</p><p><br /></p><p>Gary[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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