Need help with id for incuse cash coin

kyuss

Need help with id for incuse cash coin. Found this is a lot of mixed cash coins from countries unknown. I've seen lots of cash coins, but don't remember ever seeing an incuse cash coin before(they are almost all raised writing, not indented), so here are a few pictures, one with the coin rotated, as I am not sure which is the top. Also one of the reverse, although the reverse only has a single dot, and no other features:









Link to my blog entry if the direct links to the pictures don't work:
Link

Thanks in advance for any help!

Geotovore

Looks like Qing Dynasty Chinese coin, but I don't think it's supposed to be that beat up.

Sapyx

You're correct; there are no genuine "incuse cash coins". I suspect yours is a "trade copy", or contemporary counterfeit. Probably made the same way crude "contemporary counterfeits" are made of Western coins: a genuine coin squeezed onto a soft metal blank, creating a backwards, incuse impression of the coin.

kyuss

Thanks guys - a contemporary counterfeit is cool too - you learn something new everyday - I didn't know people would sandwich coins together to make a reverse counterfeit.

It fooled me many years later - but would it really have fooled a contemporary person who knew what the real coin looked like?

Sapyx

Cash coins, particularly towards the end of the Empire, had very little value as individual coins; they were usually strung together . I suspect this coin may have been used as "filler" for a string, which would have had genuine cash coins on either end. Kind of the Chinese Cash equivalent of putting two dimes on the end of a dime roll, and filling the rest of the roll with cents.

It's also possible that it's "funeral money", crudely and quickly made, intended to resemble a coin but not necessarily used as one.

kyuss

thanks for all the good info. :-)

kyuss

thanks for all the good info. :-)

sumnom

sumnom

The impression is either from a Northern Sung dynasty or Annamese (Vietnamese) coin. See Toda #289 or #290, for example.

Given the calligraphy, however, I think it is more likely that it came from a Northern Sung "zhenghe tongbao" (minted 1111-1117 A.D.). See Ding Fubao (Fisher's Ding) #1074.


Here is one on e-bay:

e-bay auction for zhenghe tongbao

kyuss

i'm always amazed by what people on this board can find.