Catalog
See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration!
or register with email
Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!
1 Cash - Taiping Tongbao, with crescent and dot
| Issuer | Small Sword Society |
|---|---|
| Year | 1854-1855 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | 1 Cash |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Weight | Log in to see details |
| Diameter | Log in to see details |
| Thickness | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Log in to see details |
| Technique | Log in to see details |
| Orientation | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Cast brass cash coin with a central square perforation surrounded by a raised inner rim. Four Chinese characters in regular script (kaishu) are arranged in cruciform fashion around the central hole, reading top-to-bottom and right-to-left: 太平通寶 (Taiping Tongbao, meaning 'Universal Currency of Great Peace'). The characters are bold and slightly irregular in relief, consistent with the Small Sword Society's crude casting technique. The field is flat and unadorned, bounded by a raised outer rim. |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Log in to see details |
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Log in to see details |
| Reverse script | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Edge | Log in to see details |
| Mint | Log in to see details |
| Mintage | ND (1854-1855) |
| Additional information |
The Small Sword Society — a Triad-affiliated insurgent group loosely aligned with the larger Taiping Heavenly Kingdom movement — seized Shanghai's Chinese walled city in September 1853 and held it for seventeen months before Qing and French forces retook it in February 1855. This cash was struck during that occupation, one of the very few instances of a secret society producing its own official coinage on Chinese soil. The crescent and dot on the reverse are distinguishing marks that separate this issue from standard Qing production of the same legend.