One of the Most Invaluable Silver Chinese Coin
Does exist?
I have a collection of old coin, and i believe this is the oldest, the word" Kwang - Shu Kuoping One Tael" is printed in front of this coin with a Big mouthed flying chinese dragon on the center.
At the back of the coin ,many characters are printed, characters that i don't understand.
I have tried searching and i found one which exactly looks the same as mine, but i figured out later that the coin that the publisher is pertaining is fake, because it stick to magnet while my coin doesn't.
I also tried removing the stains and earthly blemishes on the coin by cleaning by a silver cleaner, but the coin only shine, the earthly blemishes remains. So , I realized there is nothing i can do since the blemishes is the remaining fact that my coin is old.
I brought this coin to test its material quality, and you know what !? To my surprise my coin is made of old silver, can you imagine "OLD SILVER".So I guess my coin is one of the Silver Dragon Dollar Coin issued by china under the Qing Dynasty(1644-1911).
And since, I believed that this coin was published under Qing Dynasty between the year of 1644 up to 1911, i started my study of the history of Qing Dynasty from different reading materials from the internet, lets us start with where should we really start our research.
The Qing Dynasty (1644-1911)
During the Song dynasty, Tael is a traditional fictional unit of weight , this were the currency of wholesale trade (Einzig 1951, p. 285). One tael of silver was roughly equivalent to
one
bolt of silk or to 1000 copper cash coins, which was the
same as one string of coins.
According to Primaltek,"In the late Qing Dynasty during the reign of Emperor De
Zong, a new type of bronze coin which was round but without a square hole in
the center began to make an appearance. These coins were not cast but
were made by machines. The first machines were imported and installed in
Guangdong Province in the 26th year (1900)of the Guang Xu reign.
With the introduction of these "struck" coins, China's 2,000 year history of casting bronze coins with a square hole in the middle was nearing
its end.
These coins were generally referred to as tong ban (铜 版) and became so popular that by the 31th year
(1906) of the Guang Xu reign were being produced at 15 bureaus in 12 provinces.
These machine-made coins were struck with two different inscriptions.One
inscription was guang xu yuan bao (光绪元宝)
which was inscribed in the center of the obverse side. Near the top of
the rim was the name of the province or place of mintage. Near the lower
rim was indicated the coin's parity against silver or, in most cases, its valve
in relation to the traditional bronze coins ("cash coins") with
square holes in the middle. Many of the coins had the name of the mint
written in Manchu characters either in the very center or near the rim on the
right and left sides.
The reverse side of the guang xu yuan bao coin usually had an image of a
dragon. The dragon could be portrayed as coil flying or
swimming. There were many different dragon designs which resulted in a
great variety of guang xu yuan bao coins.
The second category of inscription used on these machine-made coins was da
qing tong bi (大清铜币) which means "bronze in of the great Qing
(Dynasty)". These coins began to be struck during the 31st
year (1906) of the Guang Xu reign at the "General Mint of the Ministry of
the Interior and Finance" which had changed its name from the
"Tianjin Silver Money General Mint". Soon afterwards, mints in
other provinces began to strike coins with this inscription.
The da qing tong bi coins were minted in four denominations during the Guang Xu reign. The largest denomination was "20wen" (文) meaning it was equivalent in value to 20 of the common bronze coins with a square hole. The other denominations were "10 wen", "5 wen" and "2 wen", each being worth the respective number of traditional "cash coins".
In comparison to the large number of varieties of the guang xu yuan bao
coins, the da qing tong bi coins were more uniform. Similar to the
guang xu yuan bao coins, the inscription da qing tong bi written
in Chinese characters occupied the center portion of the obverse side. In
the very center of the coin was one or two small Chinese characters indicating
the province where the coin was produced.Near the top of the rim, the inscription da qing tong bi was written again but this time in Manchu
characters. Near the right and left sides of the rim were two characters
representing the "Ministry of the Interior and Finance" which was
later replaced by the "Ministry of Revenue and Expenditure".
The reverse side of the da qing tong bi coin also had the design of a
dragon but with much fewer variations in comparison to that of the guang xu
yuan bao. Near the upper rim were the Chinese characters guang xu
nian zao (光绪年造) meaning "minted during the Guang Xu
years". Near the lower rim was written in English letters
"Tai-Ching-Ti-Kuo Copper Coin"."
According to wikipedia, "The Guangxu Emperor (14 August 1871 – 14 November 1908), personal name Zaitian (Manchu: Dzai-Tiyan), was the eleventh emperor of the Qing dynasty, and the ninth Qing emperor to rule over China. His reign lasted from 1875 to 1908, but in practice he ruled, underr Empress Dowager Cixi's influence, only from 1889 to 1898. He initiated the Hundred Days' Reform, but was abruptly stopped when the empress dowager launched a coup in 1898, after which he was put under house arrest until his death. His regnal name, "Guangxu", means "glorious succession"."
According to worthpoint/worthopedia: Ten Most Invaluable Silver Coin in China , the featured coin illustrated on top of this blogged belonged to the Most Invaluable Mechanical Silver Coin In China ,"The third Coin is KWANG-SHU, ONE TAEL ,which is believed to be made in 1908, the ONE LIANG
SILVER COIN with carved word "LUCK" , MADE IN THE 34TH YEAR OF EMPEROR
GUANGXU IN QING DYNASTY, WEIGHT:26.5 G, DIAMETER:38.5MM....
From the book"The History of Mechanical Silver Coin In China"
This coin was made in 1908,in the 34th year of Emperor Guangxu under Qing Dynasty.This Coin was called "One Liang Silver Coin with arved word ,"Luck"".
According to this Book,"In the 23rd year of Emperor Guangxu(1897), the general Yan Mao who ruled in Jilin Province granted to purchase the machines,set up a bureau and found the Silver Coins. After bought the Machine from Shanghai, he change the name of the "Machine Bureau" to the"Silver Dollar Bureau",in the 24th year of Emperor Guangxu,And in his 34th year this Bureau was closed down."
Now, having the collected information, lets go back to my Coin.Lets do it , step by step, copying the way on how the characters, information and images was printed and scripted during ancient china.
So, this is the obverse side of the coin,which is also struck in two different inscription like the very first machine-made coin,made up of bronze.Now, it is wise to conclude that it is one of the guang xu yuan bao coin ,and one of the inscription was guang xu yuan bao (光绪元宝) or maybe it could be better read as tian xu yuan bao , because i guess the character looks more "tian" and not "guang" (,anyway according to wikipedia, Zai-tian is emperor Guangxu's personal name) which was inscribed in the center of the obverse side.
Near the top of the rim was the name or place of mintage. Again, if this was minted under the emperor guangxu in 1908, then maybe, the characters printed near the top of rim may mean either the "General Mint of the Ministry of the Interior and Finance" which is the Machine Bureau or it may mean the "Tianjin Silver Money General Mint" which is the so-called Silver Dollar Bureau.
Near the lower rim was indicated the coin's parity against silver or, in most cases, its valve in relation to the traditional bronze coins ("cash coins") with square holes in the middle. Since this Coin is One Tael which is also equal to one liang then maybe the characters near the lower rim may mean "One liang of silver".
If you look closer there is also blurred characters printed on the very center, maybe one or up to four smaller characters, maybe like the da qing tong bi coins which stated that the character on the very center indicates the province where the coin was produced , the blurred character printed on the center may means either of the "Jilin Province" ,"Guangdong Province" or maybe it is produced in"Chihli Province".
The reverse side of my coin has an image of a big-mouthed flying dragon. Likewise, both guang xu yuan bao coins and da qing tong bi coins usually had a variety of different dragon design printed on the center of the coin.
Near the top of the rim , the word "KWANG-SHU" is printed , and again, just maybe, "kwang-shu" is just the same as "guangxu" fron the name of the emperor guangxu ,likewise the same as "kwang-hsu".
While near the bottom of the rim, the word "KUOPING ONE TAEL" is printed, remember One tael is equivalent to One liang .thus according to the Miriam Webster Dictionary of Origin and etymology the word "kuoping" chinese (Pekingese) k'u4 p'ing2 treasury scale for silver (from k'u4 treasury + p'ing2 level, standard weight) + English tael.
My coin is Authentic, it doesn't stick to a magnet.
i already brought this coin to a test if its genuine silver, and Yes, it is a genuine authentic old silver.
I have no intention selling my coin , at present. My priority is the coin history. I am not stopping my research, i really want to investigate more,...
I hope many readers...
will post their comments...
Your comments about this post my be a piece of the puzzle I am solving.
Goodluck!!!!
_________________________________________________________________________________
References: Ancient History of China,Wikipedia
Qing Dynasty Coins, Wikipedia
Ancient Coins, Numimastic
Qing Dynsty Coin , Primaltek
Miriam Webster Dictionary
Top ten invaluable mechanical silver coin, worthpoint/worthopedia
History of Mechanical Coin Catalog, ebay
Einzig 1951,p285
No comments:
Post a Comment