Chinese or Japanese coin ID?
Duh_OZ
It weighs in at 3.16 grams and I have no friggen ruler so it hasn't
been measured.
http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m73/oz_il/coins/YUNG_LO_1403_1424_coin.jpg
My guess is a Emperor CH'ENG TSU (AD 1403-1424) but someone else
mentioned it may be a much rarer Momoyama 1587 Eiraku Tsuho. Of
course it could be some fake, especially if trying to fake the rare
one.
Found metal detecing on a parkway where the village just goes back
into the early 1900's and most houses didn't go up until the 1940's -
1950's. It was bent almost in half, you can see the crease where I
bent it back.
Duh_OZ
CH'ENG TSU size, but the weight (3.16) seems to be too low:
http://www.calgarycoin.com/reference/china/china7.htm#s1166
I can't find any info on the Momoyama one.
beekeep
Take it to a Chinese caryout. Someone there should be able to reed it.
beekeep
Slime Lowlife
<hon...@radix.net> wrote:
I'm inclined to think it is indeed a Chengzu issue, Schjoth 1166 (maybe
Hartill 20.122 if it's larger than average?). The inscriptions match
the emperor, & the Ming dynasty had lots of problems with inflation
(paper money) that seems to come out in varying weights of coins. The
cash coin was supposed to weigh 1 qian (about 5g), but a quick Google
search finds a site (http://www.vcoins.com/) where a couple specimens
weighing 2.59 & 3.60g are available for sale. Despite the variations
in weight, Peng Xinwei in his "Monetary History of China" describes the
coins as "finely made" & "uniform, with very few variant forms" (vol.2,
p.546 in the English translation). Presumably this refers to the
design & calligraphy. Peng also states that these pieces were minted
in at least 5 places, but no mintmarks were placed on the coins, & all
the reverses are blank. All the references I've seen suggest the coin
is pretty common. Hartill says a lot of these were kept in government
treasuries rather than be paid out into circulation, which makes me
think that a situation similar to the Morgan dollar pertains to these.
It is possible this is a rather well-made fake produced for the tourist
or foreign collector trade. My parents once returned home from a trip
to China with all sorts of "bargains" they got for me from various
markets. The metal of these fakes was rather brassy as well, & your
piece looks like pretty good copper (only lightly alloyed in genuine
pieces). Also, the field's "grain" looks rather irregular, & the fakes
I had showed a suspiciously patterned background; I suspect the fake
cash I had were actually struck. (The fake "silver" pieces, mostly
late provincial & republican-era copies, were all cast. Go figure.)
The price of a genuine Chengzu issue is a bit cheap for someone to do a
decent fake of it, but I've seen such things from China.
Duh_OZ
> In article <4aacde62.116304...@usenet.radix.net>, beekeep
>
>
>
> <hone...@radix.net> wrote:
=============
Thanks for the detailed notes and the link to the vcoin site.
Well, I may never know which one it is. Someone has a possible
Momoyama coin for sale and what the frick, two coins minted over 150
years apart in two different countries have the same pattern. And of
course I'm sure weights vary for the Japanese one also, so how do you
determine which is which!
From the eBay seller's ( http://tinyurl.com/q6hptg ) notes:
================
Eiraku-tsuho and Yong-le Tong-bao coins:
Japanese Eiraku-tsuho were originally based on the Chinese Yong-Le
Tong-Bao coin, Ming period (1368~1644). The characters EI-RAKU-TSU-HO
are the same on both Japanese and Chinese coins; just read
differently. The Chinese coins were issued during the reign of Emperor
Cheng Tsu (1403~1424) and then exported to Japan in large quantities.
The Japanese Eiraku-tsuho (EI-RAKU-TSU-HO) were issued in 1587; these
coins date from the Azuchi-Momoyama period (1568~1600), Tensho 15
(1587) and were minted in Osaka / Settsu (present day Osaka-fu). There
are slight differences in stroke marks, size, weight and metallurgy.
It is a well-known fact that Japanese Eiraku-tsuho are very hard to
attribute, especially since they resemble the Chinese Yong-le Tong-Bao
(1408) imported coins.
================