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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Theodosius, post: 2925089, member: 77077&quot;]I am embarrassed to report that I still have not identified one of the coins I got for Secret Saturnalia <i><u>last year</u></i>.</p><p><br /></p><p>I know, what have I been doing all year?</p><p><br /></p><p>Well, 3 or 4 times I spent an hour or hours trying to figure it out.&nbsp; It is way outside my normal collecting knowledge base. </p><p><br /></p><p>Here is the coin (its a beauty that certainly looks ancient):</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]709133[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>My Secret Santa provided some good hints, but they still are not enough for me to find this online:</p><p><br /></p><p><span style="color: #0000ff">&quot;The round coin is ancient Chinese, yet was used as currency in another land.&quot;</span></p><p><span style="color: #0000ff"><br /></span></p><p>I assume the other land was Japanese, because they also gave me this awesome Japanese coin:</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]709136[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>Which I did figure out (pretty easy given its size and shape).</p><p><br /></p><p>More clues:</p><p><br /></p><p><span style="color: #0000ff">&quot;These are not overly ancient, but not common, they are from after Columbus sailed, but before Commodore Perry reached shore.&quot;</span> </p><p><br /></p><p>I make that to be between 1492 and 1853 (the year Commodore Perry reached Tokyo).</p><p><br /></p><p>The final clue should be the giveaway:</p><p><br /></p><p><span style="color: #0000ff">&quot;The round coin is Yuan.&quot;</span></p><p><span style="color: #0000ff"><br /></span></p><p>Even armed with this knowledge I can&#039;t find a match for this coin online!&nbsp; It seems the Yuan dynasty lasted from 1271-1368 if I am reading this correctly.</p><p><br /></p><p>I tried to look up Emperor&#039;s name symbols to identify the characters (top and bottom).&nbsp; Forget about it.&nbsp; Looking up Chinese characters is hard.&nbsp; Even the websites where you draw the character are not helping me.</p><p><br /></p><p>Is there something obvious I am missing here? </p><p><br /></p><p>I feel like a 失败者 !!!&nbsp; Go ahead and try to figure out what that means.&nbsp; <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie1" alt=":)" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p><u>Give me a hint without giving it away.</u></p><p><u><br /></u></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000">And post your last year&#039;s Saturnalia gifts if you like!</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000"><br /></span></p><p>John[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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