Please help identify 3 China cash

1960NYGiants

My neighbor has these 3 China cash coins. I've paged thru my Krause catalogues but no luck. I think I have the orientations correct; all are medal alignment. Thanks in advance.

MasonG

I've identified a few Chinese cash coins using this website:

https://www.calgarycoin.com/reference/china/china8.htm#ching

MasonG

Ok- I'll try.

1: China Chien-lung 1736-95, KM391
2: Not sure, but something says "Korea" to me
3: Pictures too dark to tell

Not much help, I'm sure, but I wasn't doing anything and gave it a shot.

Sapyx

Top: China, Qianlong emperor as noted by MasonG, Board of Works mint.
Middle: Not China, but Japan. https://roberts.faculty.history.ucsb.edu/coins/Kaneibasics.html
Bottom: China. It's a little hard to see but I'm pretty sure it's the Daoguang emperor (1820-1850), also Board of Works mint.

MasonG

@Sapyx said:
Middle: Not China, but Japan. https://roberts.faculty.history.ucsb.edu/coins/Kaneibasics.html

I missed it then, but it's still not China.

1960NYGiants

Thank you, both.

Sumnomesque

Sadly, I am bereft of references at the moment. Does anyone know what the 文 on the reverse of the Japanese coin is up to? A mint mark of some sort, perhaps?

Sumnomesque

Ok, so I remembered that the internet exists and that I am on it, so I looked up this bun 文 question. If the nicely written wiki page is to be believed, the bun 文 refers to the the Kanbun 寬文 Era. So, it's a date, not a mint mark, yes?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kan'ei_Tsūhō

Sapyx

It is my understanding that it is both a mintmark - in the sense that only one mint (Kameido) used the "Bun" symbol - and the symbol was indeed derived from the Kanbun Era (1661–1673), although the "Bun" coins continued to be produced after the Kanbun era ended (the coins were made from 1668 to 1684), so it is perhaps more appropriate to consider it's use as a mintmark.

The "Kanei" inscription (the two characters at top and bottom) was originally intended to be the era-date mark, in the same way as those two character positions are used for Chinese cash coins, because Kanei was the era-name in use in 1626 when the coinage began. But when the Kanei era ended in 1643, they just never updated the era-name and kept making coins with the Kanei inscription. Kanei means "eternally exquisite", so I guess they just liked the sentiment.

Sumnomesque

Thank you for the explanation. It makes sense.

I found these images of a monument at the original mint site:

https://otherjapan.com/places/kameido-coin-mint-remains