Canh Hung Thong Bao private cash, Vietnam

[bgriff99]

Private imitation of a Canh Hung Thong Bao dynastic Vietnamese cash.   The reign was 1740-1776.    This was cast c.1800.   Diameter 21.0mm, weight 1.58g, of brass same as the originals.   

[THCoins]

Nice appealing specimen ! Being minted >25 years after the original minting period implies these still circulated widely at the time in general trade, or were these confined to local commerce ?
Quality of the minting looks fairly OK, with seemingly good quality brass. What defines this one as a clear private imitation ? Style and weight, or are there still other factors ?

[bgriff99]

This is appealing as a collector coin, once considered common, almost junk box material.   In fact about half the ones in my collection of this general type were actual junk box finds, or part of "10 for $4" lots.   Now they are impossible to find outside of southern Vietnam, and would be somewhat expensive from Japan.   This is newly purchased from Bob Reis ex George Fisher.   For the appropriate modern price.   

The dynastic coins it imitates were produced in huge quantity, and variety.   They are generally well made, broader and twice the weight of this piece.   They are all cataloged and familiar.   In some cases pieces of lesser quality may have been private-cast, or done in remote areas in wartime conditions.   This is clearly a later counterfeit, itself belonging to a wider issue type which is cataloged.

[THCoins]

One man's junkbox may be other man's treasure chest !
With the size and weight differences i see why it is not difficult to see these are later imitations.

[Figleaf]

I am aware that Chinese coins were imitated by Chinese migrants, but I wonder about their use. In what is now Indonesia, strings of cash were hung on graves, only to be plundered when discipline broke down. These coins were not meant to deceive or circulate, not religious items but somewhere in between.

In South-East Asia people were generally used to cash coins and to their weight bearing only a strenuous relation with their intrinsic value. I could imagine them circulating there, but much smaller and at half the proper weight, wouldn't it have been all too easy to spot them? So are these imitations money?

Petre

[bgriff99]

It is often a challenge to even guess how, why and where a circulation forgery was spent.   Vietnam was divided into north and south, each with its own coinages in the 1700's.    The south had more unofficial coins, or private but under license, than royal cast.   It issued none using its own reign titles per the rules laid down by China.  Although they did repeatedly ask for that right.    It had different currency zones with larger or smaller cash.   Then changed to all zinc issues in the 1740's, but the bronze and brass cash were still there, in varying sizes and at a premium to the zinc, if the zinc ones were not copper washed.

The Tayson Rebellion was a third coin issuing entity, at war first in the south, then the north, eventually defeating both.    It was itself divided into a north and south branch, each issuing separate brass coinages.    Then both were over time defeated by a surviving prince of the southern dynasty regrouping with help from Siam and then the French.   The later Tayson cash were thin, light, and numerous.    The Nguyen prince fighting them in the 1790's issued smaller zinc coins in his own name starting 1796, but his overall area of control, becoming the whole country by 1802, probably issued anonymous brass/bronze coins.   Maybe a lot of them.         

This type of coin is found in the south, not so much in the north, so tentatively thought issued there.   Although imitating a common northern dynastic inscription.   There is no obvious point it should have been practical to produce until about 1788, but not later than 1810.   Thus "circa 1800", but still just a guess.   This was definitely issued for money.