ORIENTAL NUMISMATIC SOCIETY

Secretary General Europe: Dr. H. J. van der Wiel, Mr. M. R. Broome, UK & Eire: Mr. K. W. Wiggins,

Newsletter Editor America: Mr. W. B. Warden, Jr., Mr. S. Goron, South Asia: Mr. P. P. Kulkarni,

Annual Subscription $£6.00; H. Fl. 25; FF 75; $12.$ Regional Secretaries General: Mr. G. P. Hennequin,

September - October 1989

This month we feature Nick Rhodes. Nick is one of the founder members of the ONS. Born in 1946, he was brought up in London and has been collecting coins for as long as he can remember. He was first taken to A. H. Baldwin & Sons Ltd at the age of seven and was given excellent and generous guidance from the late Albert Baldwin. In 1962, when English coins became too expensive for a schoolboy pocket, Nick started collecting Oriental coins, particularly the coins of Nepal, which seemed to provide a fertile field for original research. On leaving school, he travelled overland to Nepal where he found a numismatists’ paradise, full of Nepalese and Tibetan coins. After a mathematics degree from Cambridge he qualified as an actuary and, working for an international reinsurance company, he is occasionally able to combine business travel with the search for coins in the East. He has been Honorary Treasurer of the Royal Numismatic Society since 1973. Nick’s wife Deki is from Darjeeling, of Tibetan descent, and their son John is sixteen years old.

Nick’s specialist interests now embrace the currency of the whole Himalayan region

from Kashmir in the west, through Nepal, Tibet and Bhutan, to Assam and the Hindu states of north-east India, and he also collects Chinese and other far-eastern coins. He has - - ms written many articles on the coins, banknotes and stamps of these areas and his book on ‘“‘The Coinage of Nepal”, written i in collaboration with Karl Gabrisch and the late Carlo Valdettaro, has just been published by the Royal Numismatic Society. ONS News

The Nagpur symposium mentioned in Newsletter 119 has been deferred to October 1990 to allow more time for arrangements to be made.

A reminder that the next London ONS meeting will take place on Saturday 4 November at 9 Montague Street WCl, commencing at 2.15 p.m. Mike Legg will give a talk on the coinage of Tipu Sultan and it is hoped to hold a small auction. Members may also like to know that the London Coin Fair will be held on the same day at the Cumberland Hotel, Marble Arch, London W1, commencing at 9.30 a.m. — Other News

This year’s American Region ONS meeting will take place in the afternoon of Saturday 9th December at the New York

Sheraton Centre Hotel during the New York International Numismatic Convention. Guest speaker will be Dr. Michael Bates, curator of Islamic coins at the American Numismatic Society. The precise time of the meeting will be listed in the programme of the N.Y.I.N.C. There will be the usual get-together for ONS members and friends at dinner afterwards.

Symposium on Viking-Age coinage, Sigtuna (Sweden), June 1989

A consortium of Swedish numismatic institutions organized an international symposium May 31 - June 4 in commemoration of the 40th anniversary of ‘"”CNS’’ (Corpus nummorum in Suecia), an ambitious scheme to investigate, publish and make historical sense out of all Viking-age coin finds ever made in Sweden, including tens of thousands of Islamic dirhams (11 volumes have appeared so far, in 3 different series, and many more are being prepared). The venue was the bucolic Sigtuna Foundation, in 1000-plus year old Sigtuna, Sweden’s earliest mint town and nowadays conveniently located near Stockholm’s Arlanda international airport. There were about 50 participants from western, central, northern and eastern Europe and the U.S.A. 36 papers were read, in addition to 2 introductory lectures (Official languages: English and German). The first two sessions were devoted to topics related to Oriental numismatics.

S. Noonan (Minneapolis): Dirham exports to the Baltic in the Viking age (As many as 25 to 50 million dirhams may have been reexported from European Russia to the Baltic area in the IX-Xth centuries AD).
Fomin (Moscow): Dirham circulation in Europe as reflected in the literary sources (Many Northwest African coins among the early dirhams brought to Eastern Europe from the Near and Middle East)

Chr. Toll (Copenhagen): The fabrication of Islamic coins (Information gathered from medieval Arabic literary sources from Yemen, Egypt and Morocco)

Kropotkin (Moscow): Volga-Bulgarian coins (Xth-century official imitations of contemporary Islamic, chiefly Samanid, issues)
Lieber (Oxford): Did a ‘‘silver crisis’? in Central Asia affect the flow of Islamic coins into Scandinavia and Eastern Europe? (The “‘silver famine’ that was not, even if the importation of dirhams into Eastern & Northern Europe abruptly stopped around 1000 AD)
Kromann (Copenhagen): The latest Cufic coin finds from Denmark (From Bornholm and other places: latest additions to Denmark’s public holdings of domestically unearthed dirhams)
Ilisch (Basle): Hoards from the Near East contemporary with the Viking Age (10 hoards found in Northern Syria and Southeastern Turkey in the 1970s and 1980s: a comparison with European finds of similar Islamic material, with special attention paid to dirham fragments)
Rispling (Stockholm): Islamic imitations (Official and/or unofficial imitations - Asian and/or European - make up about 10% of the Islamic or Islamic-looking material found in Scandinavia: ‘‘Due to the barbarous or semi-barbarous character of some groups of the official coinage, the border line between official and unofficial coinage is sometimes unclear’’)

Transactions of the symposium will ultimately be published as one CNS volume (Editors: B. Malmer & K. Jonsson). - P. Hennequin New & Recent Publications

Tawfiq Ibrahim has published an article entitled ‘Notas sobre un amuleto 320311151 y la problematica de 135 perforadas’ in Boletin de Arqueologia medieval, 2, 1988 (published by the Asociacion Espafiola de Arqueologia Medieval).

World Coin News for 18 July 1989 (vol. 16 no. 29) has an article by William S. Kable entitled ‘Last hand-cut dies strike Yemeni gold’, dealing with the coins issued between AH 1371-1381, while the 25 July edition (vol. 16 no. 30) has an item entitled ‘Making sense of yen’ by Albert Galloway.

NI Bulletin, volume 24, no. 7 (July 1989), has a short item by Allan Wyon on the Rajkumar College medal in Memoriam Karansinhji of Rajkot (Puddester 903.1).

The Numismatist vol. 102, p.8 (August 1989) has an article by William S. Kable entitled ‘A Mysterious Gold Piece of the Sudan’, which discusses the gold coin attributed to the Mahdi.
The September edition of Spink Numismatic Circular has a well-illustrated article by Bob Senior entitled ‘Indo-Parthian Problems’.
The publishers Macdonald Orbis in association with Spink & Son Ltd are publishing The Coin Atlas. Written by Joe Cribb, Barrie Cook & Ian Carradice of the British Museum’s Coin & Medal Department, the Coin Atlas is “‘the first book to present a country-by-country account of world coinage from its beginnings in the seventh century BC to the present day. The book describes the development of the four separate coinage traditions of the Mediterranean, India, China and Islam, as the Distribution of legend the same as Grabar no. 55. The mint Hims, in central Syria, is one of the rarer Tulunid mints. Grabar registers for this mint-name only three dates: 274 H (no.28), 278 H (no.46) and 285 H (no.75). The first two coins are single entries.
Oleg Grabar, The Coinage of the Tulunids. ANS, New York, 1957.

Four Dirhems of the Marinid ‘Abd al-Haqq II 833/1420 - 869/1465 Tawfiq Ibrahim

To this last sovereign of the Marinid dynasty Hazard attributes only two silver types, his nos. 1151 and 1152. Arroyo augments this meagre number by thirteen new types and two previously unpublished mints. We think that a further four new types are contributed in the following lines (from the photographic files of J. - Rodriguez Lorente. Scale of illustrations 121.5) 1. mint TAZA. 0.75 gr. 15/14.5 mm.

حير نيسدتافلا‎ Koran VII-87

As Arroyo indicates for his type 4 the spelling of TAZA is not the usual one.

ve Legends same as previous but تازى‎ substituted by هرصنو‎. 0.65 gr. 12.5/12 mm. 3. 0.76 gr. 11/11 mm. elec,.٠:١

Ll, Sal امدر نيملسملا‎ يظقاحل‎ al ايده الله‎ Koran XV-9

The use of Koran XV-9 seems to be an innovation not registered as previously used on the coinage of this dynasty. 4. 0.75 gr. 14/15 mm,

وما صنلار

الله العزيز Koran 111- 2 oe © @ هة.‎ 4 @ @

Arroyo: H. Arroyo: Un trésor de dirhams de la fin de l’Empire Mérinide, Revue Numismatique, Vle Serie- Tome XVI, année

1974, Hazard: Harry W. Hazard: The Numismatic History of Late Medieval North Africa, New York 1952. Two terracotta lockets based on coins of the Roman Emperor Tiberius S. D. Godbole

These ‘Roman’ terracotta lockets are found in Paithan, western Maharashtra. These are based on original Roman coins with

both obverse and reverse designs. At first sight they look like Roman coins without legends. On the obverse is the bust of a king, probably Tiberius, 14 A.D. The reverse seems to show Livia seated right holding a long sceptre and olive branch. The diameters of the lockets are 18mm and 15mm respectively.

In olden days Paithan was the capital of the Satavahanas and an important trading centre. Many Roman coins came there for trading purposes. As these were famous for their beauty and artistry, their designs were used by local potters to create such terracotta articles for poorer people who could not afford to pay for metal objects. The potters used to fabricate clay moulds for both the obverse and reverse from Roman coins and these moulds were used for the lockets. Many people think that these Roman clay models came to India with amphorae but in fact these are Indian copies created by Satavahana artists.

The Persian spelling of King Thirithudhamma’s name on trilingual Arakanese coins M. B. Mitchiner

For a period of some three decades Arakanese silver coins were inscribed in three languages: Arakanese on the obverse, Persian and Bengali on the reverse. The scarcity, both of these coins and also of interested scholars proficient in the mixture of scripts, has retarded the reading of these inscriptions. The first satisfactory proposals were published by Robinson and Rhodes in ONS Newsletter 85-6 (1983) under the title ‘The Coinage of the Mrohaung Dynasty of Arakan; 1430-1635 AD: part 3: The Trilingual Coins’.

Thirithudhamma (AD 1622-38: Burmese era 984-1000) issued trilingual coins dated to his accession year, BE 984, and then a monolingual (Arakanese) issue for his coronation in BE 996. Each language of the trilingual issue provides substantially the same message, the Persian rendering by Robinson and Rhodes (no.7) being “Lord of the White and Red Elephants, the exalted Tittudharma’’.

Their reading was based on three coins. Two further coins of this type, formerly in Dr. Donald Gear’s collection, are published here. It is now possible to show that the Persian legend ends Raza (or Raja). In the light of hindsight one can see some traces of the word on previously published coins. The other feature is that the better preserved coin shows the presence of the letter K (or G) in the middle of the king’s name. Thus:- Coin]: weight 10.05 gm. Sahib (a)l - fil al - abyad 18/3 *1 - ahmar Sri Tekudharma Raza

الا يدك و محالر

ex ر مره <وكن يارس:‏ Coin 2: weight 9.65 gm.

This coin has been struck from different dies:

the Persian legend appears to end Raja (not Raza) origins and progress in each country of the world are traced within a concise historical framework. It tells when and why new currencies and denominations were introduced, what they were made of, how they were designed and inscribed and how

successful they were. The story of coinage is brought to life by more than 100 maps and 1100 illustrations, while the text is thoroughly cross-referenced. Each entry includes a table giving instant information on FIRST COINAGE, FIRST DECIMAL COINS, MAIN MINT and CURRENCY, while a glossary of terms and comprehensive index are also provided. The Atlas

(ISBN: 0 - 356 - 17486 - 7) costs £19.95 per copy plus £3 postage from Spink & Son Ltd, 5-7 King St., St. James’s, London SW1Y 6QS) and no doubt in due course elsewhere.

Collectors of gold sovereigns will be interested in the forthcoming publication of a new book by the Royal Mint entitled ‘Royal Sovereign 1489 - 1989’. The book is in five chapters, each written by an expert in his field, viz. a general introduction to the sovereign by John Porteous; a description of the Tudor period of the sovereign’s history by Dr Christopher Challis; the story of the modern sovereign since 1817 by Graham Dyer; a description of the coinage from the branch mints

by John Sharples; and the final chapter on weight and fineness by EG V Newman, a former Queen’s Assay Master. The book oe. £30 in the UK or US$ 59.95. Further details from the Royal Mint, Llantrisant, Pontyclun, Mid-Glamorgan, CF7

Galata Coins Ltd., Park House, Albert Road, Wolverhampton WV6 OAG, U.K., have issued a 100 page sales list which includes oriental coins. Review

F. Richards (Editor), ‘‘The Imperial Monetary System of Mughal India”, OUP, Delhi, 1987, 382pp

Many members will be aware of the large and growing volume of literature in various periodicals concerning the historical problems of bullion flow, which often contain items of numismatic interest, oriental and occidental. This is the second contribution by Richards to such literature, a more specialised volume than his first,! focusing on Mughal India.

In the volume a broad spectrum of scholars attempt to go beyond the statistics of bullion flow and focus upon the more fundamental questions of money use; a laudable enterprise which meets with mixed success.

The paper by John Deyell on Akbar’s coinage is well worth consulting. It takes an objective look at early Mughal coinage, and tries with some success to use this as an indicator of contemporary political and economic affairs. The sections on the copper dam issues are especially valuable. Similarly a paper by Om Prakash uses a study of Indian mint practices to good effect, and thereby helps to explain the pattern of development of the Western enclaves in the sub-continent.

A paper by Marie Martin largely concerning the metrology of Akbar’s coinage in contrast seems to break little new ground. The reviewer feels that Miss Martin goes rather over the top in trying to estimate the weight of Akbar’s rupee to one hundredth part of a grain on the basis of weights given in old museum catalogues.

The papers by Stephen Blake and John Richards both seemed to promise more than they delivered. Both attempt to study money use in fairly broad terms; through Akbar’s ‘Ain’ and in the 17th century province of Kandesh respectively. The questions asked seem rather too general, and the answers received rather too sketchy. The attempt to study such a broad topic as money use, as distinct from the better defined area of government economic policy, would seem an almost impossible task in the context of late 20th century Great Britain,? let alone early Mughal India!

Almost all the participants at the conference which generated this volume seem to have been influenced by the views of Irfan Habib, given in his paper on a price revolution caused by influx of silver in the early Mughal period. This paper follows the tried and trusted ‘bullion flow formula’ explaining all major monetary events in the period as effects of the arrival of New World silver. The paper is thereby rendered clear, consistent, informative but ultimately wrong. Habib clearly cites Braudel? as his mentor, and, like his guru, Habib seems eager to distort the numismatic record in order to fit his hypothesis. For instance in his treatment of the collapse of the copper dam issue in 17th century India, it is suggested that the falling silver price caused the displacement of copper coinage even from petty transactions, their place being taken by miniscule silver coins, annas, in the reign of Shah Jehan. This just is not true; insignificant quantities of silver annas were struck, as all students of Mughal numismatics must know. The demise of the copper dam signalled the widespread abandonment of petty coinage by the 17th century Mughals, and an explanation must be sought on a deeper level than mere bullion prices.

The final paper, by Frank Perlin, is by far the longest and most complicated. A broad survey of money use is given touching on events in the Maratha and Native States period. Any contributions on the background to these neglected coinages is to be welcomed. Much of what Perlin offers seems to be valuable and accurate, though much else seems clouded by unnecessary abstraction. Those interested in these series are urged to consult this paper themselves.

All in all this is a book which the collector of Indo-Moslem and Native State coinages might well wish to borrow and dip into. It is however not the sort of standard reference work that is indispensable to a modest numismatic shelf.

The first Richards book, ‘‘Precious metals in the late medieval and early modern worlds”, Durham N.C., 1983, was usefully reviewed by - Perlin in “Journal of Asian Studies’, vol. XLV No. 5, pp 1037-1046. 2. See the comments in the CSO publication ‘“‘Economic Trends”, No.316, February 1980, Macafee K., ‘‘A glimpse of the hidden economy in the national accounts’.
E.g. the chapter on “Money” in ‘‘Capitalism and Material life 1400-1800”’, Braudel F.P., pp 325-372.

R.T. ONS meeting in Tibingen 30 April- 1 May 1988

Dietrich Schnadelbach (Berlin): Ilkhan oder Beylik? - Im Namen der Ilkhane in Anatolien gepragte Miinzen

Anatolien glich in den Jahren 694 bis 740 AH (1295 bis 1339 AD) dem “Wilden Westen” mit standig wechselnden Machtverh4ltnissen. Zahlreiche Nachpragungen der Ilkhan-Miinzen waren die Folge. Bis jetzt lassen sich drei Gruppen unter- scheiden: Originale

Die vorherrschende Serie bilden hier Miinzen der Ilkhane, die hinsichtlich Miinztyp und Gewichtsstandard den im Reich der Iikhane geltenden Normen entsprechen (vgl. S. Blair, ANSMN 27, 212-213) und in Prageorten geschlagen wurden, die von der ilkhanidischen Verwaltung kontrolliert wurden (z.B. Arzinjan, Erzerum, Qaisarije, Siwas, Toqat). Daneben gibt es durchweg seltene Miinzen der anatolischen Fiirstentiimer (Beyliks), die hinsichtlich Miinztyp und Gewichtsstandard den ilkhanidischen Normen entsprechen, aber in Prageorten geschlagen wurden, die von den Beyliks kontrolliert wurden und nicht der ilkhanidischen Verwaltung unterstanden (z.B. Falakabad/Egridir, Sulaimanshehir/Beyshehir). Mit diesen Miinzen bekennen sich die Beyliks, wegen der Seltenheit der Miinzen offenbar widerwillig, als Vasallen der Ilkhane. Beischlage

Die Miinztypen der spaten Ilkhane, insbesondere von Ghazan Mahmud, Uljaitu und Abu Sa’id wurden in Anatolien haufig kopiert. In Miinzfunden der Zeit betragt (nach Steve Album) der Anteil dieser Beischlage bis zu 80 %. Die Qualitat der Bei-

schlage ist sehr unterschiedlich. Es gibt solche, die von den Originalen kaum zu unterscheiden sind und vollig barbarisierte Stiicke. Dazwischen kommen alle denkbaren Uberginge vor. Die Kopien unterscheiden sich von den Originalen in erster Linie durch abweichende Gewichtsstandards. Offensichtlich pragten die lokalen Anstalten Kopien bestimmter Miinztypen auch dann noch, wenn deren Originale im Gebiet der Ilkhane durch andere Typen ersetzt wurden. Dabei folgen die Kopien aber den laufenden Reduktion des Sollgewichts durch die IIkhane. So geht hier der im Reich der Ilkhane geltende Zusammenhang zwischen Miinztyp und Gewichtsstandard verloren. Weitere typische Merkmale der Kopien sind Beizeichen (z.B. Sterne), die auf den Originalen nicht vorkommen, und abweichende Fabrik (z.B. breitere und diinnere Schrotlinge). Die Gestaltung der Schrift zeigt zunehmend regionale Besonderheiten. Die auf den Beischlagen angegebenen Daten und Prdgeorte sind in der Regel problematisch, weil sie entweder vom Original tibernommen oder durch mehr oder weniger lesbare Daten und Ortsnamen ersetzt wurden. Es gibt aber auch Beischlage, bei denen die Daten oder die Prageorte absichtlich weggelassen oder durch Beizeichen ersetzt wurden. Daten und Prageorte kénnen auch durch Barbarisierung zu bedeutungslosen Krakeln verkommen sein. Es gibt auch Beischlage, die sich eindeutig bestimmten Beyliks zuordnen lassen (z.B. eine Serie ‘Ala ed din Eretnas in der Sammlung des Verfassers). Diese bestatigen die Vermutung, dass ein grosser Teil der Beischlage zu den Miinzen der Ilkhane von den Beyliks gepragt wurden. Die Zuordnung einzelner Typen zu bestimmten Beyliks ist bisher aber nur ausnahmsweise gelungen. Neben den Beyliks miissen wegen der vielen Typen und dem breiten Spektrum der Qualitét aber auch weitere Autoritaten oder Heckmiinzer als Emittenten der Beischlage angenommen werden. Nach- und Neuschopfungen

Wahrend der Regierungszeit Abu Sa’ids treten zusatzlich lokale Sondertypen auf. Dies ist ein erstes Anzeichen fiir den einsetzenden Zerfall der ilkhanidischen Kontrolle iiber Anatolien. Gleichzeitig erstarken die Beyliks. Beim Tode Abu Sa’ids ist diese Entwicklung so weit gediehen, dass seine Nachfolger keine Chance mehr haben, die Herrschaft tiber Anatolien zu be- haupten.

Hans Wilski (Bad Soden/Ts): Die Riyal-Sebili-Pragung von Mahmud II in Tunesien

Unter dem osmanischen Sultan Mahmud II (1223 bis 1255 AH bzw. 1808 bis 1839 AD) wurden in Tunesien Grosssilbermiinzen gepragt, die den Namen “‘Riyal Sebili”” trugen. Der Name leitet sich von dem spanischen 8 Reales-Stiick ab, das offenbar tiber Sevilla nach Tunesian kam. Von den Einheimischen wurde die Miinze “Vater der Weintraube” genannt (nach einem entsprechenden Beizeichen auf der Vorderseite der Miinze), von Européern etwas einfallslos ‘“‘Piaster’’. Der Riyal hatte von 1225 bis 1234 ein Sollgewicht von 16,0 g, und (nach einer Pragepause) von 1240 bis 1243 eines von 11,5 g und schliesslich von 1244 bis 1255 eines von 11,0 g. Die Untersuchung einer sehr grossen Zahl von Miinzen ergab fiir die erste Periode tatsachliche Gewichte zwischen 15,0 und 15,5 g, und fiir die Zeit von 1240 bis 1255 Gewichte zwischen 11,0 und 12,0.ع‎ Die grosse Gewichtsinderung wurde durch eine Beizeichenanderung kenntlich gemacht. Fiir die spater folgenden finf weiteren Beizeichenanderungen (auf der Riickseite der Miinzen) konnte keine Begriindung gefunden werden; ein Zusammenhang mit Anderungen des Standards oder der Regierungszeit der Beys liess sich jedenfalls nicht erkennen. Fiir den TunesienSammler ist es jedenfalls niitzlich zu wissen, dass es 6 verschiedene Riyal-Typen von Mahmud II gibt.

An Umayyad Dirhem not in Walker! Tawfiq Ibrahim

ISTAKHR رخطصأ‎ 80H. 2.158, 25.5 mm. obverse reverse x 1.5

Istakhr was in the location of Persepolis. From the listings of private collections three other early dates not in Walker have now seemingly been registered, though not published, for this mint-name: 82 H, 83 H and 84 H.

Walker:’John Walker, A Catalogue of Arab-Byzantine and Post-reform Umayad Coins (London, 1956)

A dinar of Khumarawayh b. Ahmad b. Tulun (270-282 H) Tawfiq Ibrahim

HIMS حمس‎

281 H. Date for mint-name not in Grabar! and apparently otherwise unrecorded. Some coins of the East India Company issued for Benkulen Ken Wiggins

The fanam and cash coinage issued for Benkulen in Sumatra by the East India Company between 1687 and 1695 has been known since 1974 following its attribution by the late Major Pridmore.!

Pridmore at first assigned these coins to the Madras Presidency but a subsequent article by Dr. J. P. C. Kent? and further research by Major Pridmore made the attribution to Sumatra quite certain.

The first issue of 1687 has on the obverse the bale mark of the London Company and on the reverse the Arabic inscription S 53 G (Angrez Kampani - English Company). The Arabic is accurately engraved in good style. LES. fig. 1

Later issues of this series comprising three, two and one fanam pieces in silver and a copper cash were similar but the reverse inscription was so stylized as to be virtually unreadable UU كنلا‎ as Angrez Kampani.

The purpose of this note is to bring to notice two further copper pieces which are probably additions to the Sumatra series described above.

No. 1. AE cash. Weight: 3.22 grams. Diameter: 12 - 13mm. Obv. ‘Tey Rev. Similar to fig. 2 above but more carelessly engraved. fig. 3

As the enlarged photograph shows, this coin has considerable wear. The bale mark on the obverse does not occur on the known issues of Benkulen and is not one described by Pridmore.? It appears to be a blundered version of V.E.I.C. (United East India Company) whose bale mark came into use after 1702 when the London Company amalgamated with the English East India Company. This coin would therefore appear to have been issued for Benkulen sometime after 1702. The East India Company held Benkulen until 1824. Their first fort was named Fort York. It was replaced in 1714 by a new fort renamed Fort Marlborough.

No. 2. AE cash. Weight: 3.27 grams. Diameter: 12 - 13mm. mae

Obv. The bale mark. Rev. Arabic inscription As similar to fig. 2. fig. 4.

The interest in this coin lies in the reverse inscription, which is certainly not “Angrez Kampani’’. Unfortunately, part of the inscription is off the flan. It is questionable whether this coin is one of the Benkulen series or was struck for use in another of the Company’s posts. Its weight compares favourably with the known cash of Benkulen which, according to Pridmore, was 54.68 troy grains or 3.54 grams.* The contemporary copper cash of the Madras Presidency were of considerably less weight, ranging from.53 to 1.23 grams. The half dudu or five cash pieces struck between 1755 and 1804 average at about 3.15 grams which is roughly the same as the coin illustrated 5

Spink’s Numismatic Circular. Vol. LXXXII, No. 11, November, 1974. 2. Spink’s Numismatic Circular. Vol. LXIX, No. 9, September, 1961, and vol. LXX, No. 6, June 1962. 3. F Pridmore, Coins of the British Commonwealth of Nations, Part 4. India. Vol. 1. East India Company. Presidency Series. London, 1975.

pp10-11. 4. Spink’s Numismatic Circular. Vol. LXXXII, No. 11. November, 1974. 5. F. Pridmore, op. cit., pp62-64. I am indebted to Dr. N. Arkesteyn for the photographs of the coins illustrated here. Erratum

In the footnote to the Tiibingen meeting item on page 4 of Newsletter 119 the wrong reference was given. It should read: - Wilski, Geltgeschichtliche Nachrichten 127, 243 (1988).

The Chinese-Siamese porcelain pee-coins

Hollink un A The remarkable pee-tokens, with numbers of pees, made by the firms. it $e th EAE 013

Introduction ١ The collector of Chinese-Siamese pee-coins is not in the same comfortable situation as his fellow coin collector of “‘nor

mal’’ (metal struck) coins, issued by any government.

Dozens of catalogues are at the disposal of the coin collector, while the pee-collector has no catalogue to refer to in order to identify his latest acquisition, or to find out how many pieces of “this” pee were issued. Nor is there any guide for the novice pee-collector, to see what can be collected in terms of shape, colour, inscription, etc.

The main reason is that pees were private issues, with no records, or minting reports being made. However, there is a limited number of porcelain pees that bear the number of the pieces actually made. These pees thus provide in themselves a remarkable record relating to their manufacture. These records are of two types: - The first type bears on the reverse an incuse number in (official) Chinese script concerning the total amount of the tokens that were made by the firms; II. The second type bears on the reverse an individual number in commercial Chinese: each token being sequentially numbered by simple strokes of the brush.

In his ‘‘Siamesische Token” (Hamburg, 1977) Mr. H. 2. Hofrichter says about the quantities of the issues:

**.. jedoch gibt es wahrscheinlich keine Nummer iiber 1.000, was auf die begrenzte Auflage hinweist…’’ (probably there are no numbers above 1,000, which indicates limited issues)

The numbers that I have found on the tokens however, are multiples of 1,000, in one case (two different items) even a total of 10,000 pieces.

Some examples of both these types are described below. - The pee-coins with incuse numbers

The incuse characters and numbers were made by using a die or mould. It will be obvious that the numbers made this way could not vary from token to token, and that just the total amount of the series that were issued could be mentioned this way.

Of the most productive companies that appear from the inscriptions, the following firms can be mentioned: Hsing - Hoh, Yiian - Chi, Yi - Hoh. The names of Hsing-Hoh and Yiian-Chi might even stand for the same firm, as will be explained further on (1.D).

I.A. The firm Hsing-Hoh, or - The Society of Increase (of profit) -

é

Ze H A | F345 Fig. 1, 2 ع‎ 3. Obv: Tien- K’ai Wen - Yin

Heaven is the foundation of refined luck Fig. 1 Rev.: Hsing-Hoh Tsao-Pi-Ch’ien Wu-Ts’ien
Hsing-Hoh made of (this) salung pee 5,000 pieces Fig. 2 Rev.: Hsing-Hoh Tsao-Pi-Fang San-Ts’ien
Hsing-Hoh made of (this) fuang pee 3,000 pieces Fig. 3 Rev.: Hsing-Hoh Tsao- 2 1/2 Fén Erh-Ts’ien
Hsing-Hoh made of (this) 2 1/2 hun (song-pei) 2,000 pcs -

Fig. 4&5. Obv.: Ti- Mao - The earth is flourishing Fig. 4 Rev.: Hsing-Hoh Tsao-Pi-Ch’ien Wu-Ts’ien

Hsing-Hoh made of (this) salung pee 5,000 pieces Fig. 5 Rev.: Hsing-Hoh Tsao-Pi-Fang San-Ts’ien
Hsing-Hoh made of (this) fuang pee 3,000 pieces -

Fig. 6 Obv.: in the centre: Hsieh-Hsing Ti-Chi

Harmonious Increase, Progressive Trademark Fig. 7 Obv.: in the centre: Hsieh-Hsing Hua-Chi
Harmonious Prosperity (or: Union of the Honourable), Good Trademark Fig. 6 ع‎ 7. Obv: in the border: Tsu-Ch’ji Hsing-Hoh-Tien Tsao I-Wan-Li
Steadily bringing (them) into circulation, the shop Hsing-Hoh made 10,000 pieces (like this one) Rev.: Pai-Wen Wei-Chun

Equal to 100 wen (1 salung) To be continued…

Galataprint, Park House, Albert Road, Wolverhampton WV6 OAG, U.K