Can You ID This?

Cast during the years 1736-1795.

Gary

While counterfeiters and private casters certainly would do so, I don't think there's any evidence for official casting of predecessor-coins taking place. I'm not familiar enough with Chinese culture to know for sure but I suspect it might have been seen as dishonouring to the imperial ancestors, to be claiming equal status with them. They were supposed to use this emperor's 27-character-long posthumous name after he died, if they needed to refer to him. Not to mention they would miss out on the opportunity to promote their own glorious era; the value of coins as propaganda was not lost on the Chinese. We do know that special Qian Long cash were struck after that emperor abdicated in 1796, but before he died in 1799; these are the shan long coins with the slightly different shape to the bottom character. It's safe to assume the OP's coin was indeed cast during the Qian Long emperor's reign.

My Hartill catalogue can narrow down the date range for this particular coin slightly, based on the shapes of the characters. I'll look it up when I get home from work.

OK, as promised, a slightly narrower date range: the OP's coin is "Type G1", a later style which Hartill dates to the period 1782-1795.

Furthermore, the "Board of Revenue mint" had four branches, each with their own distinctive "privy marks". This coin is from the East Branch; Hartill number 22.223.

As for the Ming Dynasty example of issuing nine missing reign-names, Hartill has this to say:


But you are correct about the son of the ruler who only lasted one month issuing coins in his dad's reign-name. I guess he was worried that his dad's coins were so scarce, his legacy would disappear entirely if he did not.

Thanks for the responses!
And thank you Sap for your very thorough response!