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 Replies: 12 / Views: 3,053 |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1215 Posts |
 In China, the number 44 is extremely unlucky because 4 sounds like death in Chinese. Just imagine what would happen when someone got this in their change. Coin weighing .144 taels = 20 cents equiv. Always wondering why they did not make this coin more auspicious by perhaps changing the weight to 1 mace and 4.5 candareens. Edited by 0xDA71D
09/21/2014 10:06 pm
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Pillar of the Community
Australia
3831 Posts |
They did exist - the market preferred a standardized crown silver coin in line with other major silver coins that circulated. It just happened to be when it was converted to mace and candareens, it turned out to be that number. http://www.pcgsasia.com/Article/PCG...Beijing?l=en |
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
1215 Posts |
I don't question its existence as I have a real example. Just that why did they not use 1.45 M or 1.43M is the question.
Or perhaps 1.43999999 M
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
2519 Posts |
I just wonder how they can translate "qian" and "fen" into "mace" and "candareens". They don't even sound like each other!
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Pillar of the Community
Australia
3831 Posts |
When I meant by existence - there were coins struck in 1.46 mace. Check the link. Again, if you read my comments carefully, it just happened to be the case. In fact, when pattern coins were struck overseas, they were struck in 7.3 mace and 1.46 mace. The Chinese officials themselves preferred 7.2 mace and 1.44 mace. Why? Otherwise you would have scrupulous people scrapping off weight to match silver coins that circulated back then - Japanese yen were at 26.7g, British Trade dollar were at 27g, Mexican reales were at 27.1g The technical weight of one mace is 3.78g. 7.2 mace would make it 27.2g and 7.3 mace would be 27.5g. Surely mints would have found there was no need to strike coins in such weight if they can get away with strike coins with less and make more profit. Would the number "4.4" put them off? I doubt it. If there were overweight coins, I am certain some crooks would have melted them down and resell it for scrap value. Kirin mint in particular was notorious for this - most of their coins are severely underweight. If you have strong interest in Chinese coins, please get Eduard Kann "Illustrated Catalog of Chinese Coins" books. They come in three volumes and you learn a lot more. My partial coin collection http://www.omnicoin.com/collection/gxseriesMy numismatics articles and collection: http://www.gxseries.com/numis/numis_index.htmRegularly updated at least once a month. Edited by gxseries
09/22/2014 03:16 am
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1215 Posts |
wow thanks for your information gxseries!
So some Chinese coins are actually underweight?
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1215 Posts |
Moreover, gxseries, I like your website.
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New Member
Canada
29 Posts |
The name candareen comes from the Malay kandūri.[1] An earlier English form of the name was condrin.
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New Member
Canada
29 Posts |
Like other similar measures such as tael and catty, the English word "mace" derives from Malay, in this case through Dutch maes, plural masen, from Malay mas which, in turn, derived from Sanskrit māṣa, a word related to "mash," another name for the urad bean, and masha, a traditional Indian unit of weight equal to 0.97 gram.[4] This word is unrelated to other uses of mace in English.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1215 Posts |
COINPICKER!
Nice to see you here!
I am a big fan of you on Youtube.
I like when you received a mint set from Silverpicker.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
5362 Posts |
Just an odd thought. Was the average Chinese person familiar enough with Arabic numerals to have a problem with the pronunciation of the word "FOUR"?
Does the Chinese equivalent of 4 sound like death or is it the English word "four" that sounds like death?
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
2519 Posts |
The Mandarin (and I think other Chinese dialects, even though I'm only familiar with Mandarin) of "four" is 四 pronounced sì, and death is 死 pronounced sǐ. Notice that the difference is only on the tones. Four has a going down tone (4th tone), and death has a going down-then-up tone (3rd tone). I'm not familiar with other dialects but I'm pretty sure Cantonese also has this problem. The same case in Japan, where those two words also have similar pronunciations.
If you ever played Castlevania (a Japanese RPG), there is a boss named Death, and he usually has 4444 HP. It's a bit of a play that both words are pronounced as "shi".
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1215 Posts |
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Replies: 12 / Views: 3,053 |
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Posted 09/21/2014 10:58 pm
