Title Page - A Chinese Collection

Presented here is a Chinaman's collection of coins I purchased in 2005, directly from China. It consists of 60 coins on five pages that span fourteen dynasties from the Qin to the Republic of China. Other dynasties represented are the Western Han, Wang Mang, Eastern Han, Sui, Tang, Posterior Chou, Southern Tang, Northern Sung, Jin, Yuan, Ming, Ming Rebels, and Qing.

You rarely encounter a representative cash collection that was assembled in China. It gives us a clue to the ways the average collector in China might pursue his hobby. The coins are all in average condition and only one or two are scarce. Each coin has a separate hand written card (written on the back of cigarette carton cardboard) showing the attribution. The collection is heavily weighted with Northern Song (28/60). The collector concentrated on various script styles for this Dynasty. So what do you think this indicates? These coins were more readily available in his area, they are the most inexpensive, or they just interested him the most?
Here I'll show the entire collection, starting from the calligraphy cover of the booklet, a scan of each page showing the cards and then a detailed photo of every coin on that page. Starting from the beginning page you can progress from the oldest dynasty through to the Republic of China. All are round coins with square hole centers [except for the R.O.C.] and shows the consistency of Chinese coinage for over two thousand years. One brief transitional type of coinage is not represented and that is the machine milled coingage of the late 19th century. Personally, that's a coin type I would have included. You can see several examples elsewhere in the Moneta Gallery.

My description of the coins are provided using the excellent resources found in the book "Cast Chinese Coins", by David Hartill; 2005, published by TRAFFORD (ISBN 1-41205466-4). Other cross references may also be provided.