1 Cash - Songyuan Tongbao, with crescent

The Songyuan Tongbao was the inaugural coinage of the Song dynasty, issued under Emperor Taizu following his consolidation of power in 960 after decades of fragmentation during the Five Dynasties period. The crescent mark — a small lunar symbol placed within the reverse field — is among the earliest documented privy marks in Chinese numismatics, used to distinguish output from specific furnaces or casting supervisors within the same mint operation. Hartill's cataloguing of this variety as 16.1 places it at the very opening of a dynasty that would ultimately run for over three centuries.