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Seeking Confirmation On A Northern Song Dynasty Cash

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Spence's Avatar
United States
34452 Posts
 Posted 10/22/2016  7:43 pm Show Profile   Bookmark this topic Add Spence to your friends list Get a Link to this Message Number of Subscribers
Hi. This one came from my "trash" pile of unattributed coins.

I'm quite sure that the first character is Tian, which would push this into Northern Song territory (under Emperor Zhen Zong). In looking at Hartill, I'm a little torn between attributing this as 16.70 or 16.71, with the difference being that the first variant has straight feet on the bao, while the second variant has smaller characters and two dots on the left side of the tong character. Unfortunately, the coin is so worn, that it is difficult to know whether the tong originally had one or two dots, but currently there are not two dots. On the other hand, the line drawings in Hartill seem to indicate that the first variant is a mm or two larger in diameter than the second variant. My coin is definitely on the small side--a little smaller than the line drawing on the second variant.

So my question is...should I attribute my coin following the shape of the tong (16.70) or the diameter of the line drawing (16.71)? I know that a thousand bazillion coins were cast during the Northern Song Dynasty and Hartill only includes "a few of the more distinctive varieties".


Seeking-Confirmation-On-A-Northern-Song-Dynasty-Cash

Seeking-Confirmation-On-A-Northern-Song-Dynasty-Cash
"If you climb a good tree, you get a push."
-----Ghanaian proverb

"The danger we all now face is distinguishing between what is authentic and what is performed."
-----King Adz
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TypeCoin971793's Avatar
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 Posted 10/23/2016  08:46 am  Show Profile   Bookmark this reply Add TypeCoin971793 to your friends list Get a Link to this Reply
I'll get my Hartill out later today when I'm home. Usually, in this grade, I save a lot of headache by not caring about the variety.

And you are right, it is a Tian Xi Tong Bao, but there are several other coins that have "Tian" as the first character. Just look under the "4-Stroke" directory in the beginning of Hartill's book.
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 Posted 10/23/2016  11:07 am  Show Profile   Bookmark this reply Add Spence to your friends list Get a Link to this Reply

Quote:
Usually, in this grade, I save a lot of headache by not caring about the variety.


Yes, that is exactly why it has been in my trash pile for so long. However, now that I'm part of this great ocean of CCF knowledge, I was thinking that attribution might just be possible.



Quote:
Just look under the "4-Stroke" directory in the beginning of Hartill's book.


Great tip! I hadn't noticed that before and so have been reduced to flipping through the pages looking for similar first characters.


"If you climb a good tree, you get a push."
-----Ghanaian proverb

"The danger we all now face is distinguishing between what is authentic and what is performed."
-----King Adz
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