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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;manymore, post: 729687, member: 17118&quot;]To provide a little additional information, the Chinese inscription at the top of the obverse side is read right to left as <i>da qing tian ming huang di</i> which translates as &quot;Emperor Tian Ming of the Qing (Ch&#039;ing) Dynasty&quot;.</p><p><br /></p><p>&quot;Tian Ming&quot; was the reign title for Nuerhachi, the leader of the Manchus, who proclaimed himself Emperor in 1616 and thus founded the Qing (Ch&#039;ing) dynasty. </p><p><br /></p><p>The Chinese characters written vertically at the side of the portrait are read top to bottom as <i>nu er ha chi</i> which, in English, is variously spelled as Nuerhachi, Nurhachi, etc.</p><p><br /></p><p>The reverse side has the Chinese characters <i>da qing</i> meaning &quot;Qing (Ch&#039;ing) Dynasty&quot; written right to left at the top.&nbsp; The bottom has the inscription (right to left) <i>shi er da huang di</i> which translates as &quot;the 12 Emperors&quot;.</p><p><br /></p><p>One last point of interest.&nbsp; If you examine the dragon closely you will see that the foot at the 3-4 o&#039;clock position has five claws.&nbsp; In Chinese symbolism, a &quot;five claw&quot; dragon always represented the emperor.</p><p><br /></p><p>Gary[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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