China - Southern Ming Rebel 1644-1646

[rick]

Da Ming
diameter: 22,5 mm
weight: 3 g

[Figleaf]

The characters for the name of the era are both wrong. The upper one seems to be "ta" and there are several eras starting with "ta", but the lower one makes no sense. The character "hu" (Peking, ministry of finance) on the reverse is typical for the coins of Chung Chen (1628-1644). That would make this a bad imitation of Remmelts 177f

Peter

[translateltd]

The same reverse character is used on Korean mun (cash) issued by the Treasury Dept - see this thread:

http://www.worldofcoins.eu/forum/index.php/topic,8349.msg54877.html#msg54877

Not sure if there are any pre-Sang-pyong Korean coins with a comparable obverse inscription, though.

[weepio]

Why is this a fake coin, just because it's not in Remmelts does not mean it is fake. There are more cash coins not mentioned in Remmelts than there are. Remmelts in fact is a small reprint of the Schjöth catalog. The pictures are drawn and do not always very reliable.

This coin was issued by The Prince of Lu about 1644-1646 (He was one of the 4 princes of the Southern Ming) The characters mean Da Ming Tong Bao (top, bottom, right, left), and is actually on of the hardest to find. It is worth about 50 USD and infact the only type I'm missing of this period. Da Ming therefore is the name of the Ming Dynasty.

The picture was taken from Cast Chinese Coins by David Hartill

[Afrasi]

The coin shown in Hartell's catalogue confirms Figleaf's statement. It is very different in several details to the picture of your coin.

[Enlil]

Take a look at Zeno then http://www.zeno.ru/showgallery.php?cat=1599, but only 10 coins and a few match this.

[weepio]

I am familiar with zeno, the only character that does really bother me is Ming (bottom). However size and weight are quite all right.

I would say for a fake coin, it is rather convincing. When the sound was right, I would have bought it.

[Figleaf]

You're the expert, Weepio, not me. I make do with Remmelts simply because I can't afford to buy all the books I want and Remmelts covers at least 90% of what I need at an unbeatable price. I also have Peng Xinwei's A Monetary History of China. Excellent for older coins and non-cash issues, but hard to use and slow to look up a coin.

Peter