My grandma had this bag full of foreign coins and i had no idea what most of them were but i tried to pick out one that was interesting to keep. I'd really appreciate if someone could id this coin for me. Thanks!
IMHO, should be a cash from the emperor QianLong, issued in the Coastal Province around the years 1784/1794 Cf the reference book from Hartill ( looks like H 22.322 )
Ching dynasty cash coin. You can always tell since they have chinese characters on the obverse, and manchu script on the reverse. Emperor Kao Tsung (1736-1795).
Yep. Froggycoin gave you a better attribution OP, I don't have access to Hartill Qing or his Cast Chinese coins here at work.
wow thanks! does something like this have any value? my grandma also had alot of coins from the Philippines that look really interesting ... i'll have to see if i can get some of those
Unfortunately not really. They were massed produced by the millions. Even today you can buy a string of these for about $.30 a piece, and even at that price a lot of collectors would not buy them. I probably have a few hundred of these at least at home in piles of unidentified common cash coins. Cash coins are probably the cheapest 17th and 18th century, (12th and 13th century as well), coin you can buy.
Let's say the "commercial" value could be 1 or 2 Dollars ( millions of coins like this one has been cast ! ) What does matter is you like it and keep it. Chinese cash coins ( even when not fake ! ) are not so expensive and very funny and attractive(addictive ) to collect, especially for the Song period ( our middle age ) and the Qing period ( 1644 - 1912 )
Yes, Northern SOng especially with all of the various writing styles can be a very fun pursuit. My specialty has always been earlier cash and the lesser empires like the Liao. Don't forget the Tang are also fairly inexpesive and interesting. I have a warm spot for Kai Yuan coins as they are the prototypes for the earliest Sogdian cash coins.
I have tried to gather the Huichang Kai Yuan and some other funny little babies like these ....but now this collection topic is asleep Need to sort them precisely and it could be awaken
Here is the pic of an uncleaned "normal" Kai Yuan picked out of one of my coin jars On the reverse ( pic on the right ), one can discern a crescent shape above the square hole this is said to correspond to the princess nail mark according to the legend
