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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;manymore, post: 821130, member: 17118&quot;]The first image, which I will refer to as the obverse, has 5 Chinese characters.</p><p><br /></p><p>Ignoring the character in the center for the moment, the inscription is read in a different order than most Chinese coins.&nbsp; The inscription, in this case, is read left to right and top to bottom as <i>san huang wu di</i> which translates as &quot;Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors&quot;.</p><p><br /></p><p>The Chinese character in the middle is <i>tu</i> which means &quot;portrait&quot;.</p><p><br /></p><p>This &quot;coin&quot; is, therefore, one of a set of coins which displays portraits of very famous mythical rulers from the very dawn of Chinese history.</p><p><br /></p><p>The reverse side of your coin shows a portrait labeled with the Chinese characters <i>Tang Yao</i>.&nbsp; Tang Yao (usually referred to as Yao or Emperor Yao) lived around 2300 BC and was extolled by Confucius, among others, as one of the great moral &quot;sage-kings&quot;.</p><p><br /></p><p>A complete collection of these coins would presumably consist of 8 coins with one for each member of the &quot;Three Sovereigns&quot; (Fuxi, Nuwa, Shennong) and the &quot;Five Emperors&quot; (Yellow Emperor, Zhuanxu, Ku, <b>Yao</b>, Shun).</p><p><br /></p><p>These coins are clearly of modern production.&nbsp; They are not &quot;coins&quot; in the sense of currency but rather are to meant to honor legendary Chinese rulers.</p><p><br /></p><p>Gary[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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