Need help identifying Chinese coin

danglen

This HUGE coin came into my shop this morning. Can one of you Far East experts please give me a hand identifying it? Value would also be helpful. The coin is 113 millimeters in diameter and weighs in at a hefty 259.5 grams.....

satootoko

Well Dan, until Sumnom, Historygeek, or another Chinese-reading member comes along, here's some partial information on that interesting temple token.

I don't believe its a coin due to, among other things, its size and the parts of the inscription that my Beautiful Bride was able to read with some confidence. As I’m sure you know, it is much, much larger than anything pictured or described in either Fisher’s Ding, or Schjoth.

The vertical characters on side 2 literally translate as “big”, “powerful” or “great” and “luck” or “lucky”. General meaning = “very lucky”.

The Japanese reading of the characters at the left on that side is “10 ryo”, a measure of weight. The Chinese reading is presumably “10 tael”, as the Japanese Tempo Era Goryoban was a 5 tael gold coin. I'm not sure of the relationship between taels and western weights and measures, but that half-pound monster may very well weigh 10 tael.

The Beautiful Bride refuses to guess at the meaning of the characters on the right because there are so many different possibilities. (Don't forget, she hasn't had to read many complicated Kanji characters for the last 49+ years that she's been living in California. )

On the other side, the vertical characters are undoubtedly a name, probably that of the issuing temple. The bottom character is the same as the “sho” in the Japanese Taisho Emperor’s regnal name, but there are several readings of the character in Japanese, which all differ from the Chinese.

The character at the left is possibly “treasure”, and the one at the right is another of those with so many readings that it’s not guessable.

Value? What’s a huge brass temple token worth on the exonumia market these days?

historygeek

<<<The vertical characters on side 2 literally translate as �big�, �powerful� or �great� and �luck� or �lucky�. General meaning = �very lucky�.

The Japanese reading of the characters at the left on that side is �10 ryo�, a measure of weight. The Chinese reading is presumably �10 tael�, as the Japanese Tempo Era Goryoban was a 5 tael gold coin. I'm not sure of the relationship between taels and western weights and measures, but that half-pound monster may very well weigh 10 tael.

The Beautiful Bride refuses to guess at the meaning of the characters on the right because there are so many different possibilities. (Don't forget, she hasn't had to read many complicated Kanji characters for the last 49+ years that she's been living in California. )>>>

This translation is pretty accurate, in addition the two vertical characters on the center of side 2 are generally used for Chinese New Year festival posters. The characters on the right seem to mean "authority issued."

The characters on side 1 seem to say, directly translated, "Very Centre, is Treasure." Do not ask me what that means... (Please also note that Chinese lacks plurals, tenses and other attributes of English grammer which makes direct translations into English seem even stranger.)