How interesting can a $2 coin be?

Discussion in 'Ancient Coins' started by Parthicus, Dec 30, 2019.

  1. Parthicus

    Parthicus Well-Known Member

    Here's a coin that I purchased from a world coin dealer's junk box for $2 at the Baltimore show in November:
    Northern Song Jia You.jpg
    China, Northern Song. Emperor Ren Zong (1022-1063), Jia You period (1056-1063). AE cash. Obverse: Inscription in standard script Jia You Tong Bao (Praised Protection Current Coin). Reverse: Blank. References: Hartill 16.154, Schjoth 517.

    The Song Dynasty (960-1279) was a time of high culture in China, and is sometimes called the "Chinese Renaissance". The period is usually divided into two parts, the Northern Song (960-1127) and the Southern Song (1127-1279). After losing the northern part of their territories to the Jin dynasty in 1127, the Song retreated to the south and re-established their dynasty in a new capital. This map shows the Song at their greatest extent in 1111:
    1024px-China_-_Song_Dynasty-en.svg.png
    (Map via Wikipedia under a Creative Commons license)

    The Song period was a time when Confucian scholarship was revived, and art and literature flourished. Emperors generally tried to deal with their neighboring states with diplomacy or the offering of tribute rather than warfare. The economy flourished, and enormous numbers of coins were issued, as well as paper money.

    Renzong was born in 1010, the son of Emperor Zhenzong. When Zhenzong died in 1022, Renzong took the throne, with his stepmother Liu as regent. However, she refused to step down when Renzong came of age in 1027, and continued as co-ruler until her own death in 1033. Renzong's reign of 41 years was the longest of the Song dynasty. He followed the usual Song pattern of avoiding military confrontations with his neighbors, and sent large bribes to the Liao in exchange for peace. To pay for these bribes, he heavily taxed the peasants, which eventually led to a series of peasant rebellions. Despite this apparent indifference to the plight of his poorer subjects, he was reportedly a merciful, modest, and frugal man. He ordered that government officers should be cautious in administering the death penalty, and said that any official who even once sentenced an innocent man to death would never again be promoted. All of Renzong's sons died in childhood, leaving him without a legitimate heir; before his death, he had two young relatives brought to the palace and trained, one of whom (a son of Renzong's first cousin) was chosen as the next emperor upon Renzong's death in 1063.
    250px-Renzong.jpg
    (Portrait of Renzong; public domain, via Wikipedia)

    Chinese emperors, much like the current Japanese emperors, did not put their names on their coinage. Rather, they used reign titles (nien ho), or two-word slogans that described how the emperor wanted that period to be remembered. To borrow an example from Frank S. Robinson, if Franklin D. Roosevelt had been a Chinese emperor, he would have used the reign title "New Deal." The last Chinese dynasty (Qing), and the current Japanese monarchy, used one reign title to cover the emperor's entire reign. The Song, however, often changed the reign title several times in one emperor's life, resulting in a huge number of coin varieties with different legends. This coin is from the Jia You (Praised Protection) period, the last reign title of Renzong's life, which was used from 1056 to 1063. Other reign titles used by Renzong (he had a total of 9 over his 41 year rule) include Heavenly Saint, Revered Protection, Extreme Peace, and (my favorite) Celebrated Calendar.

    I found this coin in a dealer's junk box of mainly 19th and 20th century world coins at the Baltimore coin show in November. This coin, over 900 years old, in decent condition with fully readable inscription, was just $2. This makes sense, when you consider the enormous amounts of coinage issued during the Song period, but it is still pretty amazing when you pause to think about it. Please post your Chinese coins, or other coins that cost surprisingly little given their historical interest.
     
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  3. PlanoSteve

    PlanoSteve Well-Known Member

    Wonderful write up! :happy:;)
     
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  4. medoraman

    medoraman Supporter! Supporter

    I hear you @Parthicus. We do kind of get a little spoiled after we have been around these coins for very long. Just Saturday I went to a local dealer who had some random stuff for me. I always go because I have scored some screaming deals on cool things there. This time, pretty boring. Some small gold, some world silver stuff for my kids, and he had three ancients. I ended up paying him $60 for three Roman denarii, a AP and two Julia Domnas. They weren't bad, aVF-VF, one with a JUNO reverse, but I simply took them home and tossed them in a pile.

    Twenty years ago I would have studied these, ogled over them, not believing my luck I could hold authentic ancient Roman silver coins for so little. Same with Chinese. I have a book of almost all known type of Northern Sung coins I almost never look at, and strings upon strings of these. We forget how special they can be.
     
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  5. Finn235

    Finn235 Well-Known Member

    Nice grab - can't beat a 900+ year old coin for the price of a small coffee!

    I have a modest collection of Chinese coins - couldn't really get into the swing of reading the script, so I have a binder page of early (pre-Tang) and one page for everything after. I haven't gotten through imaging those yet, but I do have pics of two recent buys - both from arguably the most interesting and collectible emperor of all - Wang Mang. These are both scarcer issues and cost about $15 and 30. Both claim to be value "One Spade".
    Wang Mang spade.jpg

    Wang Mang Buo Quan One Spade.jpg

    Common Wang Mang - the 1 and 50 cash coins - are quite inexpensive, only about $1 and $5-10 each, respectively.

    One of the things that drew me into the Indo Sassanian world is the affordability. They rarely exceed $25 for the choicest of specimens, average about $9, and on rare occasions can be had much cheaper than that. About a year one seller had a hoard of fully uncirculated coins - fine style and in bright, good silver. I won most of them for the $5 minimum bid or just a little over it - the entire hoard ended up costing less than a single nice Greek tetradrachm
    ZomboDroid 26082019125620.jpg

    (And don't let misconceptions fool you - these coins are not billon but full silver of 75-90% fineness)

    Also who can forget the LRB's? This Crispus is one of my favorites for just $30
    Crispus principia ivventvtis.jpg

    Or here's a Tetricus that I pulled from a $2/coin lot, less than $30 for the whole lot
    Tetricus I Laetitia Avgg.jpg
     
  6. Severus Alexander

    Severus Alexander find me at NumisForums

    A brilliant demonstration of how much fun $2 and a little research can bring!

    Here's my Jia You (maybe? I have it marked as H 16.150, but I don't have Hartill with me right now to check & it doesn't look much like yours):

    Screen Shot 2019-12-30 at 6.23.52 PM.jpg
     
  7. ancient coin hunter

    ancient coin hunter 3rd Century Usurper

    $2 - Less than a small coffee at Starbucks or Peets. Quit a find for a 1000 year old coin.
     
  8. Parthicus

    Parthicus Well-Known Member

    @Severus Alexander: Your coin is correctly labeled, Hartill 16.150, of Jia You. Your coin, however, has the characters arranged clockwise (top, right, bottom, left) rather than the usual top, bottom, right, left, and the inscription is Jia You Yuan Bao rather than Jia You Tong Bao. To confuse things further, your coin uses Li script, which is subtly different than standard script. This variation in character arrangement, wording of the legend, and script style helps to produce a huge number of varieties in Chinese coins, and this is especially evident in the Song period. (Hartill lists over 500 varieties for the Northern Song, and over 900 for the Southern Song, though to be fair the Southern Song also add mintmarks, year numbers, and sometimes marks of value to the mix.) One could easily specialize in Song coins and still build an extensive collection.
     
  9. Severus Alexander

    Severus Alexander find me at NumisForums

    Indeed! Thanks for the confirmation of the ID & further details.
     
  10. TypeCoin971793

    TypeCoin971793 Just a random guy on the internet

    You are correct, but @Parthicus beat me to it.

    Quite true! Some Song coins are prime rarities in their own right! A complete set of official issues is nearly impossible to complete
     
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  11. TypeCoin971793

    TypeCoin971793 Just a random guy on the internet

    The patina on that Bu Quan is truly beautiful. Great example!

    As for the Bu Quan, it has the fine style commonly seen on official Wang Mang issues, but there are no official records describing its issue. This suggests it is not a Wang Mang issue. The style, however, suggests it is. This coin remains an enigma to this day.
     
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  12. rrdenarius

    rrdenarius non omnibus dormio Supporter

    Interesting coin and good sluthing / attribution. I do not have any Chinese coin attribution skills, so I was a bit lost when a coin club member showed a coin he found in the back of his collection. He did not know how long he owned the coin, but it might have been from his father. It looks like it could be related to yours.
    20191209_180004.jpg 20191209_180023.jpg
    We googled the Song Dynasty and found some close fits. He will report back at our next meeting.
     
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  13. dougsmit

    dougsmit Member

    I searched on eBay and found a seller offering a set 115 of these coins by inputting the date range rather than 'Song'. The interesting parts of the sale are several:
    China 115 Pcs Diff. North Sung Dynasty Coins Collection, AD 960-1125.

    Please refer the picture, Fine to Very Fine condition. 115 pieces different one-cash coins in all.

    Minted by China North Sung Dynasty Emperors. China’s North Sung Dynasty was a superpower in 10th to 11th century. Every emperor minted its own coin, and some emperor minted several different types of coins in different scripts. This collection includes 115 different one-cash coins, minted by around 20 emperors of North Sung Dynasty. It includes nearly all types of 1-cash coins minted by North Sung Dynasty. Only 2 emperors minted two kind of scarce/rare coins, which is not included in this item.

    1. Here we have a seller offering a group for only about $2.50 a coin specifying you won't get the two rare ones. I have no idea if this seller is honest or not but it is refreshing to see someone not calling something rare when we know there are tons of them. It is hard to believe there are so many fakes of Chinese coins when you consider how many real ones are out there. He says you get 'nearly all' the types and I am sure that my level of interest in the subject would be met with far fewer coins. This is a field where we each can find our own 'level'.

    2. He offers 115 different variations but only from 'around 20' emperors. This reinforces the point that there are may little variations in the series for the student to learn. I imagine a 'complete' set of these coins would include many more very fine, specialist level distinctions that would be lost on most of us.
    All depends on your definition of 'nearly' and 'complete'.

    3. Note this seller calls the dynasty Sung rather than Song. This is minor compared to the variations you will see according to which system of transliteration from Chinese to English you see. Beginners will see nice little and cheap booklets issued some time ago with easy to use line drawings showing the common types but uses names for emperors before the modern pinyin style became standard. After you realize that Hsuan Te and Xuande are the same guy, it gets easier.


     
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  14. Sulla80

    Sulla80 Well-Known Member

    @Parthicus, a very interesting write-up that makes well the point that there are surprisingly low cost coins with links to rich history. Is there a good reference or guide online to reading and sorting through the different types? Here's my one Chinese coin - relatively modern, which thanks to this site, I think I have narrowed down to Ch'ien-Lung AD 1736-1795 (mint on the reverse eludes me):
    CH'IEN-LUNG.jpg
     
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  15. Parthicus

    Parthicus Well-Known Member

    @Sulla80 : Your coin is indeed from the Qianlong emperor, mint of Taiyuan in Shanxi Province. I think the coin is Hartill 22.324 (issued 1736-1740)- there are several varieties (Hartill 22.324-328) that are distinguished by very subtle variations in how the characters are written, so I could be wrong about the exact subtype.

    For ID, the best option is Hartill's book, which has pretty quickly become the standard. (He has a similarly comprehensive book on Japanese cash coinage.) The website you linked is very useful, and probably your best bet if you don't know much about Chinese cash. The ultimate Internet resource for cash (and other Asian coins) is zeno.ru, but that site is hard to use unless you already know something about the coins. (You can also post a photo and ask for help, but that's less satisfying than at least trying to figure it out yourself.)
     
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  16. Sulla80

    Sulla80 Well-Known Member

    Thank you, for the attribution and the references. Nice to see that the standard English reference book is a bargain too and not a rare book. @dougsmit's comment on systems of transliteration illustrated with Qianlong == Ch'ien Lung.
     
  17. ancient coin hunter

    ancient coin hunter 3rd Century Usurper

    I have yet to get any Chinese coins. Since I don't read Chinese characters I am afraid I would be a bit lost as far as attribution. Interesting thread!
     
  18. Pellinore

    Pellinore Well-Known Member

    Only in October I bought my first few Chinese coins. They can be so beautiful, and much cheaper than other Ancient coins. But there's a lot to learn before one can try to understand them.

    8004 ons 48 co.jpg

    Eastern Han Dynasty. Emperor Lingdi (AD 186). Si Chu (four corners) Wu Zhu with four lines on the reverse. 25 mm, 4.04 gr. Hartill 10.3; FD 512.

    And then there are the variations from just over the Chinese border, the cash imitations from Sogdia on the Silk Road with tamghas and Sogdian texts instead of Chinese characters.

    5692 Urk co.jpg

    AE Samarkand Soghd cash, Urk Wartamuk. Tamghas on the reverse. 27 mm, 3.28 gr. Smirnova 657?
     
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