A Few New Chinese Ancients (And Some Questions)

Yay, finally some more Chinese coins! Wish I had more time to write a decent reply (tomorrow is the last day of my mid-terms), but I figured I might have a couple of minutes of spare time to throw something together. The nail-mark story is indeed very interesting, albeit a little unbelievable. Keep in mind there is a difference between Nail-marks and crescents though. The latter one is pretty curved, a little like your top-left coin, the other is less so (down left).

1).These are from the so called "Huichang" Kai yuan-series. Huichang refers to the reign period of emperor Wuzong (840-846) who chose this as his Nian Hao. Wuzong was not a very nice fellow and he thoroughly hated Buddhist monks and monasteries. In 841 (other sources say 845), he raided and abolished more than a few of these monasteries, and ordered the copper and bronze Buddhist statues, bells and other ornaments to be melted down. Shjöth suggests that these special Huichang coins were exclusively cast using this copper, but this is a little unlikely, seeing as how common these Huichang coins are. What is known is that at least a part of these Huichang Kai Yuan's was cast using copper from these monasteries. The Kai yuan's with 'Chang' on the reverse are particularly interesting, seeing as they were the first Kai-Yuan ever to be minted with a reverse character. Li Shen, regional commander of Yangzhou, and a big supporter of Wuzong's anti-Buddhist regime, was the first to suggest casting coins from this looted copper and did so in his provincial mint in Yangzhou. As an homage to the emperor, an abbreviated form of his Nian hao, Chang, was used on the reverse. The idea of reverse characters apparently caught on, seeing as after a short while, all provincial mints were ordered to include an abbreviation of their geographical location on the reverse. I believe around 22-23 different reverse inscriptions are known; Chang (as an abriviation for the Huichang era name), Lan, Hong, E, Luo, etc. These reverse characters all stand for place names, be it prefectures or cities.

The character on both of your coins is 'Run', Hartill 14.81. unfortunately, one of the most common Huichang Kai Yuan's, worth only a tiny premium over normal Kai Yuan's, if any at all. The inscription however is highly interesting. The Run on your coins probably is an abbreviation of Runzhou, an administrative division in the eastern province of Jiangsu, close to Nanjing. To be more precise, it was cast in the Runzhou commandry, currently a district in Zhenjiang prefecture. End dates for these Huichang coins are not known, and it is likely, seeing as they were cast in huge numbers, that minting these carried on for a long time after the Huichang era.

2). I'm no expert in authenticating, and Thomas might be able to tell you loads more, but allow me to throw up an early comment. Should I doubt the authenticity? Absolutely yes! Assume even the most common Qianlong cash are fake. Start to look for things this coin 'does' well, that look right on this coin. Correct weight, diameter, calligraphy, etc. Then, move on to the patina. Recent fakes have been especially treacherous in this area, so you definitely have to pay attention here. Try to think: If I were a forger, would I be able to fake this? If everything checks out, you either have a genuine coin, or the best fake ever made. Assuming everything is a fake is the only way to minimize the purchasing of fake coins.
That being said, I don't think you need to worry about any of these. Chinese coin collectors have been around since the fourth century, and these early collectors sure didn't care whether or not the coins were cleaned, only if they were readable. To keep them that way, they sometimes even lacquered the coins as well! This practice still continues to this day, although far less often. Many European collections from the 19th and 20th century contain mostly these cleaned coins, even spades or knives that have been completely stripped of their patina. Indeed, completely unpatinated coin is fairly unlikely, although not unthinkable. Because these Tang coins were cast in such huge number, and because of their correct weight, these Kai Yuan's were sometimes still in use during the Qing dynasty, hidden between the Qing-cash on the large strings they would be carried on. Okay, they might develop some patina, but because of them being carried in strings, this patina would differ significantly from the crusty, earthen patinas these coins can also have.

I completely agree with you; seal script is absolutely stunning! Slender gold-script comes a close second though.

Mika (may have gone on a little too long there.)

I have read that it was just the "Chang" coins that were supposedly cast from these bells, and that they were cast for only one year only, 841 (or 845).




These are actually scarcer than Hartill makes them out to be, and I value them higher than intact specimens. I occasionally come across them, but I would not call them common. I have, however, come across one that was cast to look clipped. That was lively a private issue made to pass off as a genuine "clipped" coin.

Now who clipped these? Your wording above seems to indicate that Wang Mang and his government chose to clip them themselves. I strongly feel that this is not the case, particularly because it would be much more efficient to cast "already-clipped" coins like my specimen than to cast normal coins and clip them afterwards.

I think it was clipped by the general population. There were massive amounts of counterfeiting going on, and the metal needed to come from somewhere, so these low-value coins would have been the victims of metal-ciphoning. But if the low-value coins were used (huo quans, etc), then why are they so infrequently found clipped? I think the answer lies in Wang Mang's policies. In trying to instate his new coinage, Wang Mang outlawed the use of wu zhus (a move that supposedly had citizens weeping in the streets). The public was using these because they did not trust the new fiduciary coins (arbitrarily demonetizing them did not help). Since the wu zhus were illegal, I think they would have been used and mutilated since they were not good for anything more. That would explain why so many are found clipped with respect to huo quans (but, then again, wu zhus lasted much longer and were the economic staple even during other times of fiduciary coinage and economic turmoil, so a high number of clipped wu zhus could be explained through this). I have also read that the center was often punched out to create two lower-denomination coins. But this would only be useful if the two parts remained intact, which is why a punch would have been used (see comments below). Your coin has a jagged edge, meaning the outer part was cut off to be presumably used as scrap metal and placed back into circulation.

So how bad was the counterfeiting under Wang Mang? Well, initially he instituted the death penalty to those found counterfeiting his coins. But this was not enough; he revised the law to becoming a slave for life. Then it escalated to enslaving the counterfeiter and his family for life, and finally to enslaving the counterfeiter, his family, and the five nearest households. Yet that still did not deter some.

I was able to acquire this pair of interesting coins. They are wu zhus and the centers have been partially punched out. Notice how the outer ring has broken on both pieces, and that the coins have remained unfinished in their clipping. The evenness of the cut and bowing of the metal strongly suggest a punch is being used. I presume the process was abandoned once the outer ring broke. This gives credence to the theory that the centers were punched out to create new denominations since the outer ring would have been less acceptable in commerce in its broken state. As a result, they clipper saw no incentive to continue with the coin and left it as it is. There are lots of holes in my theory, but it is excellent food for thought given these specimens.






Nothing wrong with them. The patina was just stripped.




So am I

The huge coin in the upper right of the last photo looks a lot like my only identified pre-Qing Chinese coin. I wonder if they're the same type...

(Mine is, as far as I can tell, a fiduciary 10 cash of Huizong, Chongning era, Song dynasty, ca. 1102-6; apparently S-622 or 623 - I have no idea how they differ from each other.)