Anyone up for IDing a cash piece?

MrBreeze

Here is a piece that has me a little stumped. It was listed as Schjoth 488a. I don't have the Schjoth reference but I could not find it in FD or Hartill. On the 2x2, it was labelled as No Sung, but the "Sheng" character does not look like "Sheng" to me. It looks like "you" to me. It is almost certainly made of lead.

harasha

I am thinking that it more resembles Tian Xi, a reign title of the prior emperor, Zhen Zong.

mrpotatoheadd

Try here.

sumnom

This is one is not so easy. I have spent a few minutes pawing through my references but I've come up with nothing.

I will keep looking though.

sumnom

I am thinking this might be a late Tang or a late Liao piece. I don't know that either one of those are correct. I am still hunting.

sumnom

Some people on Baidu who have responded to similar query wonder if it is a fantasy/fake. Some of them say there was not tianyu yuanbao produced during the Tang period. So maybe it Liao? I could not find it in Ding Fubao.

sumnom

Is there anything on the back?

sumnom

The tianyu reign period was used by a number of rulers reigning from 904-924AD, overlapping the end of Tang and the beginning of Liao. There are a number of other possibilities as well but still, I cannot find any 天祐元寶. I can find 天佑元寶, which is pretty close but the third character, while meaning the same thing, is a graphic variant. I am getting pretty close to stumped at this point.

sumnom

I hope someone can ID this. I want to know what it is!

LochNESS

Wow, if sumnom is stumped then all hope is lost IMO.

santelia

I checked Harthill - nothing like it I have found in the Chinese references.
The closest I can come is Vietnamese, not my specialty; but look at No. 7 in this Chapter of Toda http://art-hanoi.com/toda/12.html
Thien-phu-nguyen-bao, noted as coming in "white copper". However, the nguyen in the woodcut from Toda is a seal script calligraphy, yours in orthodox script. So it may be a Vietnamese fantasy, counterfeit, or real, and perhaps recognized in more in-depth Vietnamese coin catalogs.
Perhaps post to the Ancient Chinese Coins Yahoo group; I know at least one guy in the group is a Vietnam cash expert.

LochNESS

Many Chinese fakes are struck in "white copper," in fact it was invented by the Chinese for the sole purpose of counterfeiting silver coins. So, if this is indeed white copper, it would not surprise me to learn that it's also a counterfeit. I'm not 100% on this but I'm pretty sure white copper is magnetic. See if the coin is magnetic?

MrBreeze

No answers but a couple of responses and more info.

No characters on the back. It does have a rim on the reverse.

It weighs 9 grams.

It measures about 30mm across.

Like I said in the original post, it seems to me (in my best ignorant metallurgical analysis) to be made of lead. It has a "thuddy" ping test. It is malleable.

It is non-magnetic.

LochNESS

According to my calculations, if the coin weighs 9 grams, and is made of pure lead, the volume would be about 793 cubic millimeters. If the radius is 15 mm, the height (thickness of the coin) would be ≈ 1.12 mm.

Does that match your coin? Is the thickness just over 1 mm? If the coin is any thicker, it must contain something in addition to the lead.

Roger that, non-magnetic.



<< <i> It is malleable. >>


Oh no! did you bend it?

sumnom

<< <i>I checked Harthill - nothing like it I have found in the Chinese references.
The closest I can come is Vietnamese, not my specialty; but look at No. 7 in this Chapter of Toda http://art-hanoi.com/toda/12.html
Thien-phu-nguyen-bao, noted as coming in "white copper". However, the nguyen in the woodcut from Toda is a seal script calligraphy, yours in orthodox script. So it may be a Vietnamese fantasy, counterfeit, or real, and perhaps recognized in more in-depth Vietnamese coin catalogs.
Perhaps post to the Ancient Chinese Coins Yahoo group; I know at least one guy in the group is a Vietnam cash expert. >>



I couldn't find it in Toda.

MrBreeze

It is at least 1.5 mm thick, but less than 2 mm.

LochNESS

Well, that's pretty close to my calculations, which assume the surfaces of the cylinder are flat, and do not account for the hole ... taking the hole and the recessed fields into consideration, I have to agree with you in that it's made of lead.

santelia

Yes Sumnom - it's not in Toda. One coin has three similar characters; that's as close as I could get.

sumnom

Ah, I see.

So, do we declare this a fantasy?

santelia

The 2nd edition of Schjoth (1965 I believe) added a bunch of coins with letter suffixes, but I only have a photocopy of the first edition. I never sprung for the 2nd edition, as it was relatively expensive and I was turning to Fisher's Ding for ID'ing. So it may be listed there, although that should not be taken as authenticity. The grey area of collecting chinese cash is many forgeries are just as collectible (think 1804 dollar). Also, I know early collectors that would find the closest catalog listing, then label it with a letter or "v" for variety, hoping to find a better resource.

santelia

Gilbert Tan published an article in ONS on forgeries and fantasies in Schjoth's collection, but I have yet to spring for a subscription. Perhasps I should:
CONTENTS OF ONS NEWSLETTER 168....

Articles:

A. Goodwin: "Anomalous Arab-Byzantine coins - some further observations.
J. Farr & V. Nastich: "An unrecorded Abbasid fals of al-Shash, AH 149, in the name of al-Mahdi".
M. Fedorov: "Two rare Qarakhanid coins of Tirmidh from the Tubingen University Collection".
N. Rhodes: "The earliest gold coins of Assam".
N. Rhodes: "A hoard of Sikh coins from Kashmir".
H. Wang: summary of contents of China Numismatics, issues 72 and 73.
H. Wang: "Membership tokens of the Boxer Rebellion, China, 1900-01".
J. Silver: "A Chinese republican trial strike".
G. Tan: "Forgeries of Chinese coins in the Schjoth collection".

sumnom

I could not find it in Ding either. Actually, that is the first place I looked. I don't have Fisher's Ding but I suppose that doesn't matter since they both the same text.

I would love to read that article on forgeries in Schjoth.

LochNESS

Didn't know there were any Chinese republicans!

edit: (in China, that is)

harasha

This thread impelled me to take a closer look at the characters referenced. The first coin shows the "Sheng" character at 3:00.



I had thought, in my inexperience, that the character more resembled "Xi," seen here also at 3:00.