An Intresting Warring States Square-Foot Spade

As my first "real" post on this forum, I thought I would go with of my favourite coins present in my collection. Frequent visitors of Zeno.ru might have already seen it, but I'm guessing many of you haven't. As I have stated before, I am certainly no expert on the area of authentication, especially on these spade coins, I might have picked up a thing or two along the way, but again, definitely no expert. Nevertheless, I am assuming/have an inclination towards it being genuine, but I am obviously not sure. This spade originally came from an auction house of a German numismatic author and has been looked at and passed as genuine by the lovely gents at Zeno.ru, including B.W. Smith. But please, should you notice anything odd, I encourage you to tell me, even the best make mistakes!



I am going to spare you the entire story of how the spade coinage came to be, I believe Thomas did an excellent job at that a while ago. And please note that some of the coins he posted are probably 10 times as rare; I just really enjoy this one and it has a rather interesting backstory. This spade falls under the category of the "square-foot spades" (Fang Zu Bu, #26041;#36275;#24067;), issued from approximately 350 to 221 BC. It was probably minted within the state of Liang (Wei), one of the central kingdoms during the Warring states period . The dimensions of this coin come in at 47 mm by 29 mm, rather average for this type, and the weight is a little on the high side; it weighs in at 6.38 gram, probably due to the corrosion on the obverse.

The reading of this spade has been a discussion for a long time. Among early collectors, the consensus seemed to be that the character pictured on the obverse had to be "T'ai (yi)" (#37040; or #21488;#37009;, with or without the "yi"-radical attached), as quoted by Terrien de Lacouperie in 1892 (nr.426-27), Chinese scholar Ding-fu Bao (English translation by George Fisher, nr 255) and by Coole in the third volume of encyclopaedia on page 314. The "T'ai" they attribute it to was famous for being the ancestral home of the Ji-clan, which history would better remember as the Zhou, who overthrew the Shang-dynasty and founded their own dynasty, during which we later found out these types of coins were issued. This attribution was probably, like a large part of the nineteenth -century archology, wishful thinking; T'ai, probably close to the modern day city of Wu Gong, was located to the west of Xi'an city, which during the warring states era would be in the state of Qin, a state, in which we are now almost certain no spade coins of this type were issued. Hartill, in his excellent 2005 catalogue , attempts to fix this problem; He still keeps the T'ai reading (nr. 3.378), yet describes it as being a short version for the city of Tai Yang (#37040;#38525;), located in the state of Liang (Wei). While this is a rather plausible theory, the leading theory, widely accepted in China, differs a little. Instead of reading the character on the obverse as being T'ai, they read it as being "He (yi)" (#21512;#37009; or #37059;), which would also be an abbreviation, but for the city of "He Yang" (#37059;#38525;). This city, also being located in the state of Liang, was close to the banks of the yellow river, an area well protected by one of Liang's long walls, until the state's fall in 225 BC.

The funny bit is that Coole (Hartill does not seem to mention it, or sees it as a script variety of 3.378) also attributes a spade to this "He Yang" (vol. 3, page 126), a version rather similar to mine (for example, look at the closed "triangles"), but mirrored and the bottom part of the "He" character being more roundish. Did Coole make a mistake, and did he make two catalogue entries for one type of spade? Or did he correctly identify two distinct varieties? To be honest, I am not really sure, and would love to hear your opinion. Only having limited knowledge of Chinese, having taught myself a little bit of etymology, I cannot come to a definitive conclusion. As for the reading and geographical place name associated with the latter; I am equally undecided. Both readings make sense to me, and so do the attributions to Tai Yang and He Yang.

The rarity of this coin is a little above average for this type; not common like some of the Anyang spades, but also not the rarest spade coin there is. Hartill gave it a 8/16, the highest given to a small square-foot spade being a 6/16. In the 1930's, Ding Fu-Bao priced it a four dollars, as opposed to 10 cents to 2 dollars for the more common spades. Both these ratings however, are for the script variety with protruding lines in the character; the "triangles" (hate calling them that, but okay) on mine are rather neat and closed. One precise such example is given in Ma Feihai's 1988 "Pre-Qin Money" and is in the possession of the Shanxi Provincial Museum (picture here). Feihai gives it one star, out of a possible four, making it somewhat scarce.

So what do you guys think? Should all the different type of calligraphy be considered as the same character? Or are they two or three different ones? Overall, there seems to be a general agreement that the coin should be read as "he", short for "He Yang", and I am inclined to believe. Nevertheless, a good discussion never hurts!

Anyway, I hope someone will have found this interesting and please, if you have questions or if I mentioned anything wrong, do comment!

With ever so kind regards,

Mika

PS. Attached are a few scans from some catalogues mentioned, for visual aid (my writing may not always be that clear). From left to right: Hartill 3.378 (also Coole page 314), variety with "protruding lines", reading "Tai". Coole page 126, given reading "Ho (He in Pinyin)"; lastly, The variety similar to mine, "closed triangles", listed in "Pre-Qin Money" by Ma Feihai, originally unearthed in 1963, currently in the Shanxi-Provincial museum with reading "He".