A Chinese Sycee From Yunnan Province

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This is just one of the more unusual things that appeared in the market. A nice hunk of silver Chinese sycee from Yunnan Province. Issued around early 1900s. Weighing at 195.9g, this is pretty neat. Slightly over 6 ounce of silver or 5.25 (?) tael - assuming tael is about 37 grams. Price wasn't outrageous so I had to pick it up and do more research. (could have well overpaid but who knows...)

Chinese coins are still absurdly hot in the market and I can't see the prices falling any time soon. (well the scarcer and nicer ones anyways). I've got some unusual Chinese coins which I'll get around to documenting when I get a chance.

I'm pretty stumped over this as my Chinese skills aren't the best.

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The second would translate to Remittance bank fine silver and the last line means Inspected by official public assayer Tong

What does the first line translate to? Source from Ruixiang area?

A similar one was sold here

https://auction.artron.net/paimai-art0072021152/

This would be from an era where the Chinese were holding dearly onto the silver standard. These sycees probably ended around the end of Qing Dynasty and machine struck coins appeared for circulation. This isn't my forte. I guess it's a nice add on to the other sycee that I have in my collection.

I had no idea about these items. Thanks for the info!

Nice. Don't see sycee very often. That first line, "Yuan Rui Xiang ji", is actually the name of that issuing local bank. Doesn't look like the name of the assayer was marked on this one. It just says "had been examined together by (several) public assayers"

Edited by Wandering Circle
05/13/2022 12:34 am

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these are very unassuming pieces of silver, but ever since the market was hot for these there are alot of fakes out there, so for the uninitiated beware.

This is quite a nice one piece doesn't seem to have circulate that much, I'm no expert but no doubt GXseries score a nice piece there. hmmm do you know what these pieces went after going to the government or payments, would a large number of these have been melted down?

As Wandering Circle said, the first line is the bank.
Instead of the word bank, German sites use the word Herstellerfirma, meaning manufacturer.

Do a google search for "Cribb-Class LXVI"

This book may be of interest.
A catalogue of sycee in the British Museum: Chinese currency ingots, c.1750-1933
Publisher: British Museum Press (January 1, 1992)
Hardcover 366 pages
ISBN-10: 0714108731
ISBN-13#8207;:#8206; 978-0714108735
Author: Joe Cribb

But it might cost a lot more than 6 oz of silver:
https://www.numisbids.com/n.php?p=l...4286&lot=754
260 EURO, for the book!!

Thanks everyone. Very interesting. I tried to google "Yuan Rui Xiang ji" but found no useable information. Maybe I'm looking at the wrong place?

I find these to be quite intriguing! Were there a large amount of banks around at that time or private merchants that checked for the fineness of the silver? How did they do it back in the days? Supposedly the rejection level is at 96% but how did they know that these were not alloyed with cheaper base metals considering how corrupted the era was?

Thanks for the book Bungle. I'm certain that at prices this absurd, I would not be adding any more any time soon.

For sheer chance of luck, I have been coming across a lot of scarcer Chinese pieces which I will catalog and post.

Quote:
I tried to google "Yuan Rui Xiang ji" but found no useable information

Probably because it was a really small local bank and would likely not survived during the Communist era. I saw the index of a Chinese book written by Taiwanese author Dai Xuewen, who has written several books on sycee, and he placed the Yuan Rui Xiang bank in the chapter about the Yunnan-Burma border. So it was probably operating in that area at the time.

Edited by Wandering Circle
05/13/2022 9:38 pm

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Very very interesting.

I'm glad I posted it here! I'm sure there's more information to dig out

Thanks Wandering Circle!

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