Hello From China With A Very Small Ancient Coin Collection

Hi there, I'm happy to just be known as FP.

I should probably say I am fairly new to numismatics; at least I am in any real sense of collecting. I used to love metal detecting as a kid (in Europe) and collected coins then, but never really took it seriously after that.

In China (here better part of a decade) I've occasionally picked up old coins etc alongside other things + found a few myself while out on walks/hikes.

Anyway, as much as Chinese coins do interest me, it is probably central and south Asia where my real fascination lies- mostly due to so much stylistic variation and evolution in those places, and probably also the fact that the number of fakes of rarer bronze cash coins is just a bit silly now.

To be honest (as someone who works with antiques for a living), I am coming back to this hobby as a way to have fun, study, and relax, so will probably largely avoid collecting cash coins because of the reasons stated above.

At the moment I am mostly interested in 'silk road' coins- particularly in between the Uzbekistan-Xinjiang area, but also a much wider outside area too, given the foreign currencies that were in circulation within these places. I go to Northwest China fairly regularly so I'm generally just interested to see what 'turns up' there when I look around local shops etc.

I've started looking a little bit online here at coins for sale (but mostly only from domestic sellers in Xinjiang and Gansu, to stick to the silk road theme), and am probably going to buy a few small silver bits soon. In particular the Sogdian Sassanian-inspired coinage is one that really fascinates me, and I have found a couple of OK specimens. If anyone else has some suggestions or tips on what to keep an eye out for, I'm also all ears!

Anyway, here's most of the coins I somehow picked up (mostly by accident) over the past few years


Sorry for the poor pic but I will take better ones if I end up doing individual posts on any of the interesting ones.

Top row: one Sui (left) and two probably Han Wu Whu coins, the right two I found while hiking, left was a gift.

Middle row: ChongNing zhongbao, Song Huizong (Northern Song), not sure if this is real, a gift. JianYan Tongbao, Song Gaozong (Southern Song), found hiking. Then assorted Qing emperors Kangxi-Daoguan, mostly also gifts or picked up travelling.

Bottom row (not sure this quite counts) is a bone carving based upon an extremely rare coin from the Wei state; I got this together with a few Warring States/Han items not realising what it was until much later. Will probably post about this another time.

Another rare coin- a Ladakhi 1 Jao, circa late 18th century, bought in India when I lived there, very much by accident. I had no idea at the time it was such a rare coin but I do really love it.

And finally a ROC 1 fen from the 1920s, I also found this near a river.