Bảo Thái was the reign title of Emperor Dụ Tông of the Lê dynasty, though by the 1720s the Lê emperors held little more than ceremonial authority — real power had long since passed to the Trịnh lords who controlled the north. Cash coins issued under Bảo Thái were produced within that divided political reality, with the Nguyễn lords simultaneously administering the south and occasionally striking their own competing issues. Toda's cataloging of this type in the late nineteenth century remains the foundational reference, with Barker's later work refining attribution but largely confirming Toda's sequence.
Bảo Thái was the reign title of Emperor Dụ Tông of the Lê dynasty, though by the 1720s the Lê emperors held little more than ceremonial authority — real power had long since passed to the Trịnh lords who controlled the north. Cash coins issued under Bảo Thái were produced within that divided political reality, with the Nguyễn lords simultaneously administering the south and occasionally striking their own competing issues. Toda's cataloging of this type in the late nineteenth century remains the foundational reference, with Barker's later work refining attribution but largely confirming Toda's sequence.