Re: Modern Coins of China by Kalgan Shih
samsloan
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbninquiry.asp?ISBN=4871878708
http://www.amazon.com/dp/4871878708
This book covers the field of all modern Chinese coins in
Gold, Silver, Nickel and Aluminum. It has 185 plates, 14 figures and
about 900 illustrations."
It is an amazing book. It was purchased as part of a batch of
rare books in a China Guardian Auction held at the Beijing
International Hotel in Beijing China on June 28, 2009.
http://www.cguardian.com/english/session71.php?sessioncode=PMH200095
The winner of the bidding at that auction knows nothing about this
book. The book is also not listed anywhere on such well established
book sites as amazon.com.
However, a different book is listed on Amazon: A translation of Modern
coins of China 96 pages by Kalgan Shih
From the 1951 Preface by Kalgan Shih, it is apparent that at first in
1949 two volumes were published, one in Chinese, the other in English.
However, the English version had no illustrations. The book listed on
Amazon, for which no copies are available, must be the English version
of that book. Then, in 1951, the two versions were combined into one
book, to produce the current book of 226 pages, with full
illustrations.
Of the current book, the author says, “it is not intended for popular
sale, the number of copies is necessarily small and will likely soon
be exhausted.”
This explains why this book is not listed anywhere and was only
available at an auction of rare books in Beijing, China.
Because of the unusual name, at first I thought that Kalgan Shih was a
foreigner from another country, possibly India. However, Kalgan Shih
was Chinese. Shih is the traditional spelling of a common Chinese
name. Kalgan is the traditional name for the city of Zhangjiakou
(Traditional Chinese: 張家口; Simplified Chinese: 张家口; pinyin: Zhāng jiā
kǒu.)
The author says that he is a civil engineer who designed and built the
Liangchiatu Bridge across the Pu River on the Chekiang-Kiangse
Railway. Kiangse is the name of a major street in Shanghai.
It is unlikely that the author is alive today because he would be too
old. It also seems unlikely that he survived the Cultural Revolution,
because people like him often did not make it. Except for the
publication of this book, there is no mention of any man by the name
of Kalgan Shih.
This book contains great history. The author explains how he came to
write this book. After the “Liberation of Shanghai” as he puts it,
there was dancing in the streets. However, sadly from his point of
view, the people were so busy dancing, they had no time for work.
There was also no money to pay the factory workers, so the factories
were shut down. Since Kalgan Shih was a civil engineer involved in
building bridges and the like, the projects he was working on were
halted. This gave him extra time that he used to write this coin book.
Of course, history tells us that the problems of which he complains
were general problems throughout China, that slowed if not halted the
general progress throughout the country for the next several decades.
But, at least we got a book out of it!
Sam Sloan
New York
December 13, 2009
ISBN 4-87187-870-8
978-4-87187-870-8
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbninquiry.asp?ISBN=4871878708
http://www.amazon.com/dp/4871878708
Mr. Jaggers
> "Modern Coins of China" by Kalgan Shih
>
> http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbninquiry.asp?ISBN=4871878708
> http://www.amazon.com/dp/4871878708
>
> This book covers the field of all modern Chinese coins in
> Gold, Silver, Nickel and Aluminum. It has 185 plates, 14 figures and
> about 900 illustrations."
After reading this review I realized how scant were my library holdings in
the area of Chinese coins. As a Christmas gift to myself I decided to order
out a copy from Amazon and have it shipped overnight. It came yesterday.
Interestingly enough, at the end of the book it gives Dec. 23, 2009 as the
actual date of publication.
While the illustrations leave something to desire, there is a wealth of
information in the text that I have not been able to find elsewhere.
James
B.J.
> samsloan wrote:
> > "Modern Coins of China" by Kalgan Shih
>
> >http://www.amazon.com/dp/4871878708
>
> > This book covers the field of all modern Chinese coins in
> > Gold, Silver, Nickel and Aluminum. It has 185 plates, 14 figures and
> > about 900 illustrations."
> ...
> While the illustrations leave something to desire, there is a wealth of
> information in the text that I have not been able to find elsewhere.
Could you give examples of the new information you found?
Does the book use any common catalog numbers, or just it's own
descriptions?
Mr. Jaggers
The numbering system is unique to this work. All begin with a capital
letter followed immediately by a number, then hyphenated to another number.
Each section (gold, imperial silver, provincial silver, republican silver,
commemoratives, nickel coins, and aluminum coins start with A through G,
respectively. No copper or bronze coins are listed. A typical number is
D1-15, given to the 1919 issue of the "Fat Man" dollar. Other years of the
same type have similar, but not identical, numbers. I'd say that there is a
learning curve between the new user and the numbering system in this volume.
Most, if not all, of the coins are listed as being denominated in cents and
dollars. More varieties are shown and described than in Krause.
Considerable Chinese history is included in the listings, as well as minting
circumstances and locations and monetary history. Much translation of
Chinese text is given. Some, but not all, coins of Burma, Thailand,
Mongolia, Tibet, and Hong Kong are catalogued. No prices are listed, but
there are numerous notations of how plentiful a given coin is or isn't.
There are some appendices, one of which, several pages long, shows Chinese
and Manchurian symbols alongside their English translations. The pages
designated as the "index" are at the very end, and are much more a table of
contents than a real index.
I'm not in a position to assess how accurate are the listings, and the
scholarship is rather dated (1949). I don't know how good the illustrations
were in the original editions; the ones here are of Durst reprint quality.
Please consider the above critique as more of a summary of my observations
as a non-expert, not a real review. All in all, I feel that Sam Sloan has
done the numismatic community a very positive service in re-issuing this
title.
I am comfortable having paid the asking price for the book, even though it's
not one that I will use extensively, at least not right away. But that's
the way numismatic libraries are built, at least at my house.
HTH
James