China - Silver Cowrie - Museum Gallery

October 2024

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As usual there's no provenance on this but Mr. Ted Puls says these are a type from the area of Thailand. This 16 mm, 4 gram silver cowrie takes the form of an archaic period holed cowrie and is well worn in the hole. Rare, and compare to the other solid silver cowrie found here in the Moneta Museum. Just when I thought that there wasn't another cowrie type and material to be found, I lucked on to this one by way of the Czech Republic. I can imagine that a lot of these on a necklace might have made nice jewelry piece for the ladies of Asia at the time.

Moneta Library has articles on Cowries to VIEW and DOWNLOAD:
The Worlds's First Money, Chinese Cowries and Their Imitations - by Ted Puls: [ link ]
Cowries - Bob Reis: [ link ]
Origin of Cowries in Ancient China - UofPa: [ link ]
Metallic Cowries - Royal Asiatic Society: [ link ]
Nice Video on Cowrie history: [ link ]
An excellent article in ANA's "Numismatist" magazine, Oct 2017 > [ link ]
SEE how far back in time decorative sea shells were important to prehistoric man at his : [ link ]
Interested in Primitive Money? Then check out this YouTube video created by Kagins Auctions featuring Bob Leonard and Charles Opitz upon the massive sale in March 2021. Click this: [ link ]