In the top pic (which is the right way up) is the obverse with the standard four-character inscription, used on Chinese coins from the Tang Dynasty (621 AD) up until shortly after the fall of the Empire in 1911 - the longest-running coinage design in the history of the world. The top and bottom characters are the emperor's reign-name: "Dao Guang" (not his actual name, Xuan Zong, which was considered too special for commoners to use) which literally translates to "Path of Light". The character on the right is "tong", meaning "passable" or "current" in the monetary sense, and the character on the left is "bao", meaning "treasure", "coin" or "money"; these two characters (read right-to-left as "tong bao") appear on almost all Qing Dynasty coins. Thus, the obverse says "Currency of the Dao Guang emperor".
In the bottom pic (which is upside-down), we have the reverse, bearing the mintmark. The language on this side is Manchu (a form of Mongolian), rather than Chinese; the Qing Dynasty emperors were descended from invaders from Manchuria and their native language was still used in the Imperial court. The triple-swirly character to the left (on the right in your pic) is the word "Boo", meaning "mint"; it appears on all Qing Dynasty coins. The other word is the mint-name; in this case, "Yun", for Yunnan province.
There is no date; very few Chinese cash coins bear dates. There are a few artistic clues that could let us know whether the coin is "early" or "late" in the period 1821-1850, but nothing much more precise than that.
Don't say "infinitely" when you mean "very"; otherwise, you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite. - C. S. Lewis
Posted 12/26/2011 7:45 pm
