The Monster of South East Asia

Here is an interesting type only @medoraman would probably be familiar with. A whopper of a coin at 61.03 grams of fine silver it is my second largest coin and certainly one of the most oddly shaped.

These large coins are called Chieng-city money. This one was minted in Chieng-sen between AD 1300-1545 for the Lannathai kingdom of Thailand.

These coins are valued at 4 Baht. and 4 Baht equals a Tamelung. These coins are highly faked and often available as tourist trinkets but the real deal is rather hard to come by. This coin from Chiengsen is one of the 2 more mints that produced these coins.

The coin itself appears to be part Ingot part punch mark. The coin has nice deep legends on either side and several other marks. There is what appears to be a test cut but could be very well be part of the manufacturing process.

I really dont know much about this coinage, but I am confident it is very real.

(notice the cob web inside.)

 

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Unusual and as usual, interesting!

 

oh cool, yet another thing totally new to me...neato AN.

dang, that's heavy! kind of like a big phat version of the larin paperclips?

 

Very interesting addition! Isn't this similar to medoraman's avatar? By the way, what is it's dimensions? How big is it?

 

That's a wonderfully strange object!

It's nice to see pictures of this from so many angles. I never fully understood the shape of Medoraman's avatar picture until now.

 

Hey Noob, that new OP-addition is amazingly cool ...

=> 61 fricken grams of silver!! (great new score, congrats)

Yah, I haven't captured one of these interesting types "yet" (I also haven't managed to pull the trigger on one of those sweet Magadha punch-coins ... man, I'm falling behind, eh?)

 

Very cool! And interesting. I like the legends on each side.

 

Another excellent score AN. That one would probably wreck havoc to a Mylar flip. I take it the spider, if any, was free

 

Very interesting piece.

 

WOW !! Cool coin type ...and 61 grams of silver !!

When I 'visited' Thailand nearly 432 years after that 'monster' was struck, Baht were about equal to a US nickel (if memory serves) and NOT made from silver LOL

 

Well done. And knowing you, it was acquired at $1 over spot silver! what are the approx dimensions? That would make a hefty and nasty slingshot ammo!

 

You are the third person to independently point out that it would make a gnarly projectile.

dimensions 34mm wide x 25 mm tall x 27 mm deep x 61.03 grams

 

It appears the coin was once a bar bent in half then bent again to make road bike handles.

 

I wish this one came that cheaply.

The spider appears to have moved out sometime ago...after trashing the place.

 

Well... you know, there are at LEAST THREE sick minds in this world!

And, most folks KNOW that I will always be a part of the SICK MIND PACK!

 

The marks on the side have nothing to do with bullion. There are chakra marks at the beginning and end, with Lanna writing in the middle. My wife grew up in northern Thailand so was taught how to read the Lanna alphabet. The Chakras and Lanna mints are all known and documented. Chieng Sen and Chiang Mai are the two mints you will find 99.9% of the time on authentic examples. I only have one from a mint other than those two, but have maybe 5 each from Chiang Mai and Chiang Sen. There are about 80 total mints, but all but these two are horribly rare.

Several interesting things about these. One, did you notice if you turn them a certain direction they resemble a pair of elephant tusks? I have never read any other numismatist notating that, but to me its unmistakable. Second, if you look a the history of THai coinage you see how this shapes evolves over 600 years to be the pod duang shape of later Thailand. Others call pod duang "bullet money" or "cowrie shell" money, but its simply not true. THere is a direct, historically documented lineage from this coin to a pod duang in shape. The interesting thing about CHieng Sen is that the Thai people themselves destroyed it. Chieng Sen was the second largest city in northern THailand, but in the late 1700's too close to the Burmese armies. So the Thai's, to prevent the Burmese from possibly taking the city over and inheriting a wonderful staging area for further invasions, destroyed the town themselves and depopulated it.

 

Very cool Masternoob, what a awesome chunk of silver, hate to drag 10 of these around the market place. it looks more like Ram horns to me.

 

Really cool stuff....I always wanted one of these, but as you said, they are highly faked. Do you happen to know a trusty seller?

 

Scott Semans World Coins
Warden Numismatics
Ancientnoob's ebay store

 

Bob Ries at anythinganywhere.com has these at times as well. If you get "Siamese Coins, From Funan to the Fifth Reign" you can get a really good feel of authentic versus copies. Most fakes I have seen are not very good, as long as you know the originals well. Most are for tourists.