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My Latest Acquisitions

Started by nembiak, November 04, 2015, 12:52:14 PM

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nembiak

Hi all,

I mostly collect coins from around the Malay Archipelago (or as I prefer to call it, Nusantara) and decided that I would start a single thread where I can occasionally post coins that come into my possession. Instead of just annoying you lot with my questions on identification and authentication, I do hope you appreciate these coins as much as I do and feel free to chip in with any fun facts or the like!

October 2015


A Penang 1787 cent that was struck at the Calcutta mint. The balemark of the United East India Company is on the obverse while the reverse is inscribed with "Jezirah Perinsa ab Wallis", literally meaning "Prince of Wales Island." This coin is listed as SS15 in Saran Singh's Encyclopaedia of the Coins of Malaysia, Singapore & Brunei 1400 - 1967 and is the rarer variety of the 1787 cent due to the rotated "7" according to K.N Boon. My particular coin is graded VF20BN by NGC.



A 1787 Sumatra keping. I do not know much about this coin except for what is written briefly in Saran Singh. This coin was apparently circulated in Malacca due to a coinage shortage after the British obtained Malacca from the Dutch in exchange for their possessions in Sumatra by virtue of the Anglo-Dutch Treaty 1824. This coin is graded F15BN.


A tin coin supposedly from Portuguese Malacca which I got rather cheaply from a flea market in Kuala Lumpur. The  obverse shows a cross with the letters "I S M A" while the reverse shows (or at least showed) an armillary sphere with three bands. My coin weighs 4.35g and is roughly 18mm in diameter. The diameter does not correspond with anything in Saran Singh but everything else seems to correspond with Sim J3.12 (diameter listed is 16mm). Should it be authentic, it could be a dinheiro from the reign of Dom Joao III (1521-1557).

November 2015
The first three coins were obtained in exchange for a supposed Portuguese Malacca coin that turned out to be a fantasy issue - http://www.worldofcoins.eu/forum/index.php/topic,33428.0.html.

Still a little disappointed about the "Malacca" coin but I'm glad to be back on track of completing a set in the next year or so!


A 10 cent coin minted by the Royal Mint in 1941 for Malaya. It is a rather common coin with a mintage of 17 million. KN Boon lists a 1941i 10 cent coin in his catalogue of Malaysia, Brunei & Singapore Banknotes & Coins although he does not give any indication as to its price - I would suppose that this would then be rarer than the 1945i 10 cents.

Would any of you kind souls educate me as to what happened to the mintage of the 1941i and 1945i Malaya 10 cents and the resulting scarcity?  ;D


A Malaya and British Borneo 5 cent coin from the reign of QEII.  95 million of these were struck at various mints in the UK although my particular coin was struck at the Royal Mint, which was then in London.


1961 10 cents struck at the Heaton mint in Birmingham for Malaya & British Borneo. A whopping 130 million of these were struck at King's Norton, Heaton and the Royal Mint in 1961.


Figleaf

Quote from: nembiak on November 04, 2015, 12:52:14 PM
A tin coin supposedly from Portuguese Malacca which I got rather cheaply from a flea market in Kuala Lumpur. The  obverse shows a cross with the letters "I S M A" while the reverse shows (or at least showed) an armillary sphere with three bands. My coin weighs 4.35g and is roughly 18mm in diameter. The diameter does not correspond with anything in Saran Singh but everything else seems to correspond with Sim J3.12 (diameter listed is 16mm). Should it be authentic, it could be a dinheiro from the reign of Dom Joao III (1521-1557).

It looks OK to me. Unfortunately, that also means it's hard to know what it is. My best guess is that it is a dinheiro struck in Goa. Gomes D. João 07.01, listed at 20-22 mm, 3.9-5.2 grams. I just wish the pic in Gomes were a bit clearer...

Peter
An unidentified coin is a piece of metal. An identified coin is a piece of history.

nembiak

Good to hear some good news about a Malacca coin in the end!

As these coins and the catalogue listings vary quite a bit in terms of diameter and weight, I was wondering how reliable are these measurements in actually determining authenticity?

Logic would tell me that highly reactive metals such as tin would be severely underweight, yet at times I come across tin coins that appear to be genuine other than the fact that they're heavier than what is listed.  ???

Figleaf

The Portuguese Mints in Asia were pretty primitive and the coins have the character of emergency coins. Unlike the British, Dutch and French coins struck in the area, they were not made for profit, but to alleviate scarcity. Making coins in a hurry and without proper equipment wil give sloppy coins: weak strikes, uneven planchets, impure metal, simple, easy to imitate designs and relatively large differences in weight.

Coins that are too heavy are to be mistrusted in principle (unless they are piedforts), but these Portuguese coins show no traces of having been adjusted to the proper weight. Therefore, a heavy coin may be acceptable IF it looks good otherwise, but it is a strong negative indicator if there are other problems. BTW, the weight range given by Gomes of 3.9 to 5.2 grams is a difference of 33.333%, which is unlikely to be a coincidence. In other words, it is probably an estimate of the considerable differences in weight that occur in genuine coins and the important figure is the average of around 4.5 grams.

Coin weight loss is a complicated matter. It depends not only on wear, but also on metal composition and the environment it was in during its existence. I have handled relatively low grade silver coins with a 50% weight reduction due to copper seepage (copper solving in acids such as artificial fertiliser or decomposing tree leaves).

The second law of life applies to coins also: everything is always more complicated. :D

Peter
An unidentified coin is a piece of metal. An identified coin is a piece of history.

Figleaf

One more little thing, a coin struck in Goa will usually be considered a Portuguese Indian coin, not a Malaccan coin. This is a useful simplification, since it avoids double listing, but you should note that Saran Singh does not use it. Rather, his principle is that if it may have been used anywhere in what is now Malaysia, Brunei or Singapore, it counts as Malaysian. It is a fact that Portuguese ships docking in the Indian subcontinent would continue their voyage at least to Malacca, but also to what is now Indonesia or Taiwan. Portuguese Indian coins should be expected to be found and possibly to have circulated there.

With the inclusive logic, all older US coins should appear in Canadian coin catalogues and UK coin catalogues should include even modern minor commonwealth coins. Having said that, you decide what you want to collect. The important thing is to be aware of the status of the coins in your collection.

Peter
An unidentified coin is a piece of metal. An identified coin is a piece of history.

nembiak

Quote from: Figleaf on November 05, 2015, 08:56:43 AM
The Portuguese Mints in Asia were pretty primitive and the coins have the character of emergency coins. Unlike the British, Dutch and French coins struck in the area, they were not made for profit, but to alleviate scarcity. Making coins in a hurry and without proper equipment wil give sloppy coins: weak strikes, uneven planchets, impure metal, simple, easy to imitate designs and relatively large differences in weight.

Coins that are too heavy are to be mistrusted in principle (unless they are piedforts), but these Portuguese coins show no traces of having been adjusted to the proper weight. Therefore, a heavy coin may be acceptable IF it looks good otherwise, but it is a strong negative indicator if there are other problems. BTW, the weight range given by Gomes of 3.9 to 5.2 grams is a difference of 33.333%, which is unlikely to be a coincidence. In other words, it is probably an estimate of the considerable differences in weight that occur in genuine coins and the important figure is the average of around 4.5 grams.

Coin weight loss is a complicated matter. It depends not only on wear, but also on metal composition and the environment it was in during its existence. I have handled relatively low grade silver coins with a 50% weight reduction due to copper seepage (copper solving in acids such as artificial fertiliser or decomposing tree leaves).

The second law of life applies to coins also: everything is always more complicated. :D

Peter

Hi Peter, many apologies for the late reply. I've been away travelling and I didn't see fit to purchase an internet plan with roaming enabled  :P

Are there any good articles or books related to coin weight loss? To my understanding, coins with highly reactive metals such as tin will suffer weight loss with or without circulation while high purity gold coins should not lose any weight even if left in the ocean for centuries? In fact, I've been showed examples of Malay tin coinage disintegrating into powder with some pressure applied although these were metal detecting finds.

Also, I've moved on from Malacca coinage for the time being as it is too risky of an area for a newbie to collect - instead I've been reading up on trade dollars used in South East Asia. Although not strictly "Malaysian/Indonesian", they did circulate in the area and I may have to add a few Mexican dollars and those amazing looking silver rider ducatons to my collection for the sake of completion!  ;D

Figleaf

To my knowledge, there are no books or even articles about weight loss. Only experience is available and some of it is available here. It is a complicated subject, e.g. low grade silver can lose more weight than high grade silver and muddy water preserves better than clear water, except when the water is pollute with the wrong stuff. Indeed, gold is unlikely to lose much weight. Sea water is highly corrosive, but coins buried in the bottom of the sea will not suffer much corrosion. There are few generalities.

There are also few areas of coin collecting where you don't find fakes, though some are worse than others. Trade dollars, even cheap ones, are routinely faked in China. Pillar dollar fakes abound. Your best defence is not running away, but learning how to recognise fakes. It's not as difficult as it sounds.


  • Check weight with electronic scales and diameter with a calliper.
  • Check edge for irregularities like a seam, very irregular ribbing, misaligned lettering etc.
  • Compare with a genuine coin. On machine-struck coins, watch for misaligned letters and figures - especially in the date and coins not listed in major catalogues. On hand-struck coins, watch out for signs of casting (unless genuine coins were cast), badly formed or thin lettering, patina you can easily wipe off and die-identical coins.
  • Get to know the colours of metals, both new and worn. This takes experience.

Peter
An unidentified coin is a piece of metal. An identified coin is a piece of history.

nembiak

Excellent advice Peter. It is quite understandable as to why the general public think that us coin collectors are a weird bunch - we find satisfaction in a hobby that actually requires a lot of work and study.  ;D

Recently I've been curious as to the "white-ness" of some silver coins (even TPG graded ones) from the 19th and early 20th century when most other antiques from my grandparents time have turned black. It's quite daunting to not only learning about counterfeits but also about genuine coins that have been artificially toned, tooled, smoothed, etc.

Jerry