grivna1726 Posted July 22, 2008 Report Share Posted July 22, 2008 I have seen Russian flat square silver pieces with "1/8" or "1/4" (Spasskii shows one in his "Russian Monetary System") stamps issued for the China trade. Also tea bricks. But this is the first Chinese altyn I have seen and so I think it must be rare (assuming it is real): Russian-Chinese frontier AE altyn, 17th Century See also this related thread. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RARENUM Posted July 22, 2008 Report Share Posted July 22, 2008 I have seen Russian flat square silver pieces with "1/8" or "1/4" (Spasskii shows one in his "Russian Monetary System") stamps issued for the China trade. Also tea bricks. But this is the first Chinese altyn I have seen and so I think it must be rare (assuming it is real): Russian-Chinese frontier AE altyn, 17th Century Very interesting. . Altin is real tresure, if original. Thanks for the link. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
STEVE MOULDING Posted July 22, 2008 Report Share Posted July 22, 2008 Very interesting. .Altin is real tresure, if original. Thanks for the link. Hmmm. Interesting, but something just doesn't feel right about this. It looks a little too fresh. Skeptically... Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grivna1726 Posted July 22, 2008 Author Report Share Posted July 22, 2008 Hmmm. Interesting, but something just doesn't feel right about this. It looks a little too fresh. Skeptically... Steve One does wonder about that. Charm seems doubtful as well. I have no basis for comparison, having never heard of - let alone seen - such a coin before. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lennysky Posted July 22, 2008 Report Share Posted July 22, 2008 There was something of this sort that appeared on Staraya moneta 6 or more months ago. The coin was deemed a fake as nothing of this sort was ever recorded to be minted as I recall. Not completely sure if it was identical or not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grivna1726 Posted July 23, 2008 Author Report Share Posted July 23, 2008 There was something of this sort that appeared on Staraya moneta 6 or more months ago. The coin was deemed a fake as nothing of this sort was ever recorded to be minted as I recall. Not completely sure if it was identical or not. According to Charm, in the related thread referenced in my first post, the coin was published in 1993 and the line drawing reproduced from the literature is shown (Sapunov B.S., Bolotin D.P. Unikal'naya moneta XVII veka - "albazinskiy altyn"? (The unique coin of the 17th Century - "albazin altyn"?), All-Russian Numismatics conference, Vologda, 18-21 May 1993, Thesises of reports. P.65-69). The original text is in Russian, available in a link from the link given above. My own command of the Russian language is quite limited, so you and others here would likely get more out of the article than I. I am in over my head here and quite unfamiliar with such issues. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lennysky Posted July 23, 2008 Report Share Posted July 23, 2008 According to Charm, in the related thread referenced in my first post, the coin was published in 1993 and the line drawing reproduced from the literature is shown (Sapunov B.S., Bolotin D.P. Unikal'naya moneta XVII veka - "albazinskiy altyn"? (The unique coin of the 17th Century - "albazin altyn"?), All-Russian Numismatics conference, Vologda, 18-21 May 1993, Thesises of reports. P.65-69). The original text is in Russian, available in a link from the link given above. My own command of the Russian language is quite limited, so you and others here would likely get more out of the article than I. I am in over my head here and quite unfamiliar with such issues. I am sure someone here, maybe BKB recalls the thread on the Staraya Moneta about Albazinskiy Altyn. Mostly of why existince of such a coin is not feasible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grivna1726 Posted July 23, 2008 Author Report Share Posted July 23, 2008 I am sure someone here, maybe BKB recalls the thread on the Staraya Moneta about Albazinskiy Altyn. Mostly of why existince of such a coin is not feasible. If the coin is genuine, then there are several questions I have (not directed at you or anyone else, just things I don't understand). Apparently the coin is struck in copper ("AE"). My understanding is that China was on a silver standard (although large quantities of bronze cash coins circulated when strung together through the square hole). If these were used to trade with the Chinese, then why not similarly hole them? Also, except for the time of the copper riots, in the 1600s the wire money was what circulated and was made in silver. Surely these plentiful and already existing small silver coins would be more acceptable to the Chinese than a new and unknown copper coin. So why create it in the first place? If real, why does it have "altyn" on it when other coins of this period don't have a denomination? While some of these things seemingly make little sense, expecting yefimki of 64 kopeks intrinsic value to circulate as a ruble or issuing full value copper plate money to circulate alongside lightweight regular copper coins also makes no sense, yet we know that such poorly thought out schemes were attempted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alexbq2 Posted July 23, 2008 Report Share Posted July 23, 2008 The article in Russian mentions that there were 2 known coins in 1993. One was stored in one of Berlin's museums, the other was in a possession of a collector from Blagoveshinsk. It appears that the comparison of the Blagoveshinsk coin with the cast taken from the Berlin one revealed that they have somewhat different obverses. The overall impression that I got from the article is that such a coin could exist, but more research is necessary. Interestingly, there are 2 photos of 2 different coins with the same obverse (so one of them is not the German coin) on Zeno.ru. Imho, one of these looks a bit nouveau. Does anyone read Chinese? Presumably, the characters are "tun" and "bao" (I spelled them phonetically based on the Russian transliteration) - they suppose to mean "Coin for Circulation". This maybe the Blagoveshinsk coin: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gxseries Posted July 25, 2008 Report Share Posted July 25, 2008 The Chinese characters are pronounced as tong bao. I'm somewhat puzzled - Chinese coins at that time were cast out of bronze and they were holed to save metal. It might be some kind of trial or fantasy pieces about possible trade between the Russians and Chinese like the trade dollars we have. I can't quite tell what metal these coins were struck on but they seem to be silver which can seem to be unrealistic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alexbq2 Posted July 25, 2008 Report Share Posted July 25, 2008 The Chinese characters are pronounced as tong bao. I'm somewhat puzzled - Chinese coins at that time were cast out of bronze and they were holed to save metal. It might be some kind of trial or fantasy pieces about possible trade between the Russians and Chinese like the trade dollars we have. I can't quite tell what metal these coins were struck on but they seem to be silver which can seem to be unrealistic. The metal was red copper. These coins were not meant to circulate in China (if in reality anywhere at all), but the Amur people because of their closeness to China were use to the Chinese money. This peace presumably attempts to emulate the local trade coinage, while still be a legal Russian tender. Note: This is all based on that article in Russian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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