Identified: Yuan Feng tong bao 0

[osborne311]

8 grams and 30mm diameter.  Guessing at the orientation.  Chinese wreck off coast of Indonesia.

 

Edited September 25, 2020 by osborne311
orienting coin

[Woods020]

This may be helpful, because I am sure not. This site has some tools to aide in narrowing it down. 
 

http://www.calgarycoin.com/reference/china/chinaid3.htm

[JKK]

I did not find an immediate definitive answer (kind of busy right now and pitching in as I can) but I would suggest looking through Annamese coins (circa 1300-1500). I also suspect that the obverse orientation needs to rotate 180.

[osborne311]

8 hours ago, JKK said:

I did not find an immediate definitive answer (kind of busy right now and pitching in as I can) but I would suggest looking through Annamese coins (circa 1300-1500). I also suspect that the obverse orientation needs to rotate 180.

I re oriented the coin as suggested and corrected the measurement.   Thank You

[osborne311]

8 hours ago, JKK said:

I did not find an immediate definitive answer (kind of busy right now and pitching in as I can) but I would suggest looking through Annamese coins (circa 1300-1500). I also suspect that the obverse orientation needs to rotate 180.

I re oriented the coin as suggested and corrected the measurement.   Thank You

[JKK]

Yes, looks like the same coin issue as #2 or nearly so (not sure yet what the variation in diameter means).

[JKK]

Okay, progress. Not Annamese; Northern Song. Here's the problem: the top character that looks like a prostrating figure serving as a table base is actually a stylized version of the character yuan, much more commonly written as shown in the link and a common sight on more modern coins for obvious reasons. So one looks at the coin listings, sees that, says "nope, that's not it," when in fact it is.

So I think it's Hartill 16.211, Emperor Shen Zong (1068-85 CE). They're very common, but it is never less than cool to have a coin nine hundred years old.

[osborne311]

9 hours ago, JKK said:

Okay, progress. Not Annamese; Northern Song. Here's the problem: the top character that looks like a prostrating figure serving as a table base is actually a stylized version of the character yuan, much more commonly written as shown in the link and a common sight on more modern coins for obvious reasons. So one looks at the coin listings, sees that, says "nope, that's not it," when in fact it is.

So I think it's Hartill 16.211, Emperor Shen Zong (1068-85 CE). They're very common, but it is never less than cool to have a coin nine hundred years old.

Thank You!  I definitely plan to reverse engineer your finding once I get that book (ordered) and learn how you are researching.   Never thought there was much value in these but wanted to know what they are other than just an old coin.   This make sense as the coins were mixed from multiple dive sites but more than a few of those dive sites were Song dynasty with a lot of porcelain coming up as well.

[JKK]

14 hours ago, osborne311 said:

Thank You!  I definitely plan to reverse engineer your finding once I get that book (ordered) and learn how you are researching.   Never thought there was much value in these but wanted to know what they are other than just an old coin.   This make sense as the coins were mixed from multiple dive sites but more than a few of those dive sites were Song dynasty with a lot of porcelain coming up as well.

I don't speak much Chinese (10-20 words of Mandarin, some of them unacceptable in polite company), and I read nearly none, but here's how I do this using that book. It has drawings of many, many coins, and they are to scale, so you can lay a ruler on the page to get diameter. I then start on the obverse with either the 12:00 or 6:00 character, and start looking. If it has the loopy thing on the back, that looks like Arabic qafs and waws, I know it's Qing and thus after 1644, but Hartill goes back to cowries, spade money, etc. in times BCE. In the front is a very nice reference setup arranging legends by strokes, listing of Manchu mint names, all sorts of happy stuff. When you get it, if you were impressed in any way by me, you won't be because you'll see it was all the book, not me.

Anyway, I use the references up front to see if I can get an idea where to look chronolgically, then zero in on one of those two characters. When I find a coin they both match, and with correct diameter, I verify the other characters or absence thereof. It isn't that hard, provided you aren't too intimidated by Chinese characters.