Thai Bullet Money

[RVCOINS]

Hi Guys,

I have for over 20 years the following curious money in my collection and I was wondering if these are fakes or not.  It looks like silver bullets with inscription in arab or Thai?
I bought it with other primitive money such as Tiger Tongues, Cannoe money, Thai Bullet money, Langs of Annam etc..

The big one is fully round ( 3cm ) and the weight is 53,18 Gr
The little one is round and flat on one site ( 1,3 cm ) and the weight is 8.84 Gr.

Can anyone tell me where these bullets come from.

Thanks a lot

RVCOINS

[RVCOINS]

The big one.

[Figleaf]

They're from Thailand. See this thread for an earlier discussion. Hard to say from a pic if they are genuine, but the weights don't make sense to me. KM says the weight of a baht bullet s 15.40 grams, so the smaller one is too heavy for a half baht and the larger one is too heavy for 3 baht, while KM lists only 1 baht bullets and subdivisions.

While the stamps are reminiscent of those of Rama III, they look more like fantasy to me, but I am no expert on these pieces.

Peter

[BC Numismatics]

Roland,
  You can see some Siamese bullet money coins up on http://www.zeno.ru .

I think that the sections on the Siamese bullet money coins could be divided by reign up on there.

Aidan.

[RVCOINS]

Hi Aidan,

thanks for the link, when i look further i saw the Bullets on the link below

http://www.zeno.ru/search.php?searchid=99704

according to him they are not from Siam but from Java Indonesia. They are made from iron.

THey have not much info on this like-bullets and they place them in Zeno under Fantasy??

regards

RVCOINS


 

[Oesho]

These are Javanese etched iron ball-shaped charms, made in Surabaya, 1950s-80s, with Malay-Arabic, Javanese and Chinese inscription design or sometimes thumb-print design. They appeared on the European and American markets in the 1970s - 80s and were described as of a unindentified Sultanate on Borneo. Recent research has proved that it are magical and good-luck charms produced from about 1950 in Surabaya on Java.
Ref.: Bauquis, P.R., A strange tale of talismans, Oriental Numismatic Society Newsletter (1987), #108 & 109.
Joe Cribb, Magic Coins of Java, Bali and the Malay Peninsula (London, 1999)
Mitchiner, Michael, The Worls of Islam (London, 1977), #3986-3998. Mitchiner shows quite a number of those objects and was still of the impression that it was an iron currency of an Indonesian Sultanate, which lateron proved to be completely wrong.