Need Chinese ID

ajaan

From an old time collection. 2x2 says BC 480-255 Unlisted. Can anyone help?

sumnom

If this is real it is before the time periods with I am familiar. The 2x2 may be right but I am away from my references... Sapyx, are you out there?

Sapyx

Sumnom summons me... (sorry, I couldn't resist saying that.)

480-225 BC is the period known as the "Warring States". The concept of round coins had only just been invented, and the holes were almost always round, rather than square - the Chinese name for the coins of this period translates to "round-holed coins". To get a feel for the typical styles of Warring States round-holed coins, check out the zeno.ru pages for the period. There are some square-holed coins of generally similar style, like this one or this one, but if it's genuinely "unlisted" as that one is, then it'll be hard to either confirm or refute. I spent some time cruising through the Warring States zeno pages, both genuine and fake coins, looking for a match, and didn't find anything with just one simple character on one side.

The Later Han period also sees coins of similar shape, though again I couldn't find anything that really matched. One thing that might help us narrow down a search is a diameter.

ajaan

oops, sorry. The diameter is about 20mm.

Sapyx

20mm fits better with the Warring States period than the later Han period. It could be a larger coin that's been filed down, but there's no point in making elaborate hypotheses if we don't have to. Occam;s Razor, and all that.

I suppose the next question is, how reliable is the source of information? Does the "old-timer" seem to be mostly OK with his other attributions? If his other coins all seem to be well-identified, I see no reason to doubt this particular claim, until proven otherwise.

YQQ

u guys sure this is a coin?
looks like piece of metal with a square hole laying on fresh blacktop
lolololo