Vietnam 'Thien Thanh Nguyen Bao' struck brass 19th cent. private cash 21.3mm

[bgriff99]

Private small struck cash of brass, unknown issuer probably using French machinery.  It imitates a common 17th century cast bronze trade cash type which persisted in circulation into the 1900's.  Their valuation would have been some fraction of the standard Vietnamese cast cash, but perhaps about 1000 to a French piastre.



The above types are 21 to 21.5mm diameter, weight about 1.3g.  The older bronze ones are part of a huge and long-running series known as "An-phaps", for one of the inscriptions used.  They are even more mysterious in origin, but seem to have begun as full-sized coins made by the Mac Dynasty in the 1570's, in lieu of using their own reign titles.  Being dynastic usurpers not recognized as legitimate by China, they would have been forbidden to use their own reign titles, which they did only for a short time while asking to be recognized.  The An-phap mints operated for about 120 years, plus all of them were recast over and over privately.

 

The "prototype" of this variety, presumed to be its original issue, is 23.0mm, rather rare and perhaps were actually mother cash.  Best guess is first produced in the 1630's.  This piece is twice recast from that at 20.5mm, one of the most common of the An-phap group.

Note the surface of the brass coin shows both pure copper, reddened with cuprite, from surface enrichment, and brass areas showing from wear.  The leaded bronze composition does not exhibit that effect.

[andyg]

I am constantly baffled as to how it's possible to tell this was a private issue
Were they acceptable and of the same value as official issues?

[bgriff99]

Well first, the reign title is from the Northern Song Dynasty in China, used 1023-31.  Northern Song coins were a deliberate commodity export, produced in enormous quantity and widely distributed outside China. The most common were subsequently copied, as trade cash.  They were also copied by dynasties that were denied coining rights in their own name, and who abided that prohibition.   

This Vietnamese piece, and its other inscriptions from the same issuer, are clearly for use at the equivalent value as the ubiquitous An-phaps, which they all copy.  Some full sized Vietnamese cash were denominated "10 wen", which probably was not fictional.  These could have been the 1 wen pieces.  I don't know the decade-by-decade exchange rates for different kinds of cash, to a French or other dollar.  Certainly, though, production of these had to be exceedingly cost-controlled, to be profitable.  It's not impossible they are government issues.  Small dynastic struck pieces did start to be made in the reign commencing 1916.

The smallest French piece was 2 sapeques, similar diameter as these but 2.0g instead of 1.3.  These may have circulated as 1 sapeque.  There is only one type even close to being common.  This one is scarce.  Not many were made, and subsequently they went where the small An-phaps did.  I found several of the struck ones mixed with strings of the older cast ones and other small kinds, found on Lombok. 

Some study of these has been done, how they were made.  The uniface ones were stamped from small sheets of brass, I think 12 or 15 at a time, not struck on individual flans.  That is known from surviving pieces and sheets not completely finished.  But the issuer and dates of production are still not known. 

[THCoins]

Thank you very much for putting these two coins below each othere and hightlighting the differences !
For a novice in this category like me it is very enlightening to visually compare these two in these different aspects.