China Poem Coins Issued Around 1667

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gxseries Pillar of the Community Australia 3831 Posts	Posted 09/25/2013 01:53 am Issued around 1660s to late 1680s, a set of coins from various provinces had mintmarks that were issued in both Chinese and Manchu scripts. A lot of coins prior to this had mintmarks that were issued in Manchu scripts only. This particular series is very interesting as well as highly collectable as they can be arranged to form a poem. I'm not too sure if this was ever a commemorative set but this is really neat. Superstition wise, appearently it is said that it repels evil forces. We'll see about that... Difficulty wise, they can be very hard to find in particular coins from Taiwan, Guangdong (Kwangtung), Hunan (Honan), Yunnan and so forth. There's interesting stories from some provinces of why they are hard to find, choice of metal, weight differences, varieties and so forth. Even in this lot itself, some coins are as small as 22mm to 26mm! Some are clearly cast in high quality copper due to the price of zinc being too expensive, some mints cutting corners in particular Henan (Honan). Weight difference - a coin from Henan (Honan) at 2.58g to the heaviest from Jiangxi (Kiangsi) at 5.06g. Henan (Honan) coins were supposedly forbidden to circulate as it was severely underweight. Most coins are around the 3.5 to 4g mark. I find the Taiwan coin to be very interesting as well as difficult to find. Leaving politics aside, this is one of the few coins that Taiwan issued under mainland China. More information can found here: http://www.sportstune.com/chinese/c...hsipoem.html http://ykleungn.tripod.com/kanghsia.htm My partial coin collection http://www.omnicoin.com/collection/gxseries My numismatics articles and collection: http://www.gxseries.com/numis/numis_index.htm Regularly updated at least once a month. Report this Post to the Staff

sel_69l Bedrock of the Community Australia 21788 Posts	Posted 09/25/2013 02:23 am Interesting. Do you have the translation the actual poem? If not, perhaps some others of us here in the CCF may be able to translate. A more pragmatic way to stop roosters from crowing is to eat them! You don't get many baby chicks that way, though. Report this Post to the Staff
aiglet7 Pillar of the Community Canada 695 Posts	Posted 09/25/2013 2:36 pm Quote: Superstition wise, appearently it is said that it repels evil forces. We'll see about that... The quote I like is the one by F. Schjoth from his 1929 book "Chinese Currency" - which reads "If genuine and placed together, they have the power of expelling evil influences and of preventing fires. Their genuineness according to popular belief can be tested by placing them, when strung together, on the top of a chicken-coop: if genuine, they will prevent the cocks from crowing in the morning!". Sleep well! Report this Post to the Staff
Sap Moderator Australia 16867 Posts	Posted 09/25/2013 6:16 pm Quote: Do you have the translation the actual poem? If not, perhaps some others of us here in the CCF may be able to translate. As I understand it, the poem does not have a meaning, in any coherent sense, any more than, say, the English mnemonics used to memorize the order of the planets have a sensible meaning. What was important was that it fit the rules for writing Chinese poetry. The Taiwan coins are indeed the hardest, and perhaps the least satisfactory coins to acquire in the set, in that they are smaller and of a different metal to the mainland coins. Aware of this fact, later generations of talisman-makers produced their own "Taiwan" coins the same size and composition as mainland coins, in order to make a more attractive matching set of coins. The "poem" itself acquired such favour amongst talisman-makers that they also produced charms with the poem written on them; a much more convenient form of anti-evil protection than carrying around a string of 20 coins. See this webpage for some examples. 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 Report this Post to the Staff
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