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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;kvasir, post: 84502, member: 4139&quot;]I can&#039;t really distiguish the archaic characters since it&#039;s so worn. But it seems to me it&#039;s a 半兩 (half tael) coin or approximately 37.8g if I&#039;ve correctly guessed what the characters should be. As with all ancient measurement I&#039;m not sure the Chinese tael is the same as the tael known in the West. Even the definition of the Chinese tael could&#039;ve changed through the millennia. Otherwise, the archaic incription doesn&#039;t offer any more info. I&#039;m not an expert on calligraphy fonts to match it to the corresponding era. However, I can tell you just from the font this is definitely an older piece than any of the common Qing coins you see.</p><p><br /></p><p>Your dealer correctly pointed out that Wang Mang was indeed a historic figure between 9 to 22 AD. Whether the coin is from that era is a different matter. You can read about the history of Wang Mang in Wikipedia. Note the special section on Economic Policies where coinage of the day was mentioned.</p><p><br /></p><p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wang_Mang" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wang_Mang" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wang_Mang</a>[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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