Everyone's favorite - Chinese Cash ID help!

Here's looking at SmartOne and some of our cash experts.

I picked up the following coin in a junk coin box.  It is rather corroded and has a dark patina, but it is consistent with brass or even iron.

The back is very worn, but it appears to be blank.  If there was a mint mark here, it has been corroded or worn away.  The obverse may be hard to read in the picture, but I've transcribed it as faithfully as I could.  I know that characters 1 & 3 are "tongbao", what I can't figure out is the emperor.  I've looked at every list I could find, but maybe I'm just dense.  

Your help is much appreciated!

From what I see, tewcd,

The first character looks like asa in Japanese (朝). In Chinese it's pronounced chyo. However it's not the same character. The first part of the character (?) means sunrise and the second character (月) means moon. The second character looks like (?), which means fish (マ, 田, and 八 put together).

It looks Vietnamese. I'll might be able to give you the exact emperor in a little bit; right now I have to eat some homemade sashimi.

By the way your stroke order is wrong. But no one writes traditional Chinese anyways.

Thanks, SmartOne.  I think I've spent all evening looking at various Chinese and other Asian ruler names trying to match characters.  The lighting conditions at mid-day are terrible in my office, but I managed to take a better close-up just now:



The metal of the coin is somewhat corroded, and I can't seem to get my terrible dime-store digital camera to focus on it any better.

I think I may have found it in this site for an older Japanese coin identification book.  Problem is I can't read Japanese:

http://www.history.ucsb.edu/faculty/roberts/coins/Zenikagami/zenikagami3.html

The coin I think that matches this is on the right-hand page, and is on the top row, second from the left.

It's Korean. 朝鮮通寶. First coin of the Joseon Dynasty. Around 1400.

I just looked at a site for Joseon coins.  Are you sure its not the second coin, minted in or around 1625?  That includes a "carrot" or "^" symbol over the right-hand side of the first character in the name, whereas the earlier version does not.  Mine clearly has a "^" mark.

For instance:

http://www.ngccoin.com/poplookup/WorldCoinPrices.aspx?category=111066&worldcoinid=286839

Many thanks, I think that's the coin!  Thank you both for your wisdom

It is Korean, huh.

Good job fliegendehollander. Well you actually live in the Far East; I'm just a Japanese kid in California.

Tewcd, the book link you showed is for coins used during that era. I saw a few 1620's Chinese cash and Dutch stuivers. Because the Japanese allowed trade with the Dutch (instead of the Portuguese, who were strongly Catholic) their coinage was traded in Japanese ports.

The ^ sign is not part of the actual word 朝, and is probably a stylistic variation of the character.

http://colnect.com/es/coins/coin/27907-1_Mun-Kingdom_of_Great_Joseon_1392%E2%80%931897_%E6%9D%8E%E6%B0%8F%E6%9C%9D%E9%AE%AE-Korea

In that case, your coin is a reissue of the original coin, as Joseon is not only the name of the era for that emperor, but also the name of the Dynasty. The ^ stylization would serve as a mintmark.

I just had a site that stated this was a re-issue in 1625 through 1633 by King Injo:

http://primaltrek.com/koreancoins.html

(Scroll down some bit and find King Injo's coin).

So, if I have it correct, I'm going to make a new entry in the catalog for KM#3, per the Krause link above.

That's probably the right coin.

I've made the entry here:

https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces29060.html

And its up for swap, if anyone wants it and has some good German/Austrian/Swiss coins to trade.  Apparently this one is more valuable than the earlier version, but mine's in VG at the most.

As a follow-up for anyone who's interested, I bought this coin for $0.50, and have now sold it for in excess of $150.00 to a collector in Asia.

Hey, that's a great result, tewcd - if only you could find a few more of those!