lord85 Posted June 6, 2009 at 06:56 PM Report Share Posted June 6, 2009 at 06:56 PM http://i329.photobucket.com/albums/l385/abram85/10.jpg http://i329.photobucket.com/albums/l385/abram85/07.jpg http://i329.photobucket.com/albums/l385/abram85/05.jpg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
helilu.lily Posted June 7, 2009 at 09:20 AM Report Share Posted June 7, 2009 at 09:20 AM In the first and third picture,the pendant of the necklace is designed like a old coin of Qing Dynasty. The four chinese characters can be read 同治通寶 （"寶" is the unsimlified Chinese character ,now " 宝"） 同治 is the reign title of Qing Dynasty. You can refer to this website to know more about Tongzhi. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tongzhi_Emperor about 通宝： 通宝是中国自唐至清末铜币的一种名称，唐高祖武德四年，铸造开元通宝。开元意思为开创新纪元，以后历代沿用，并常在"通宝"二字前冠以年号、朝代或国名。从唐朝起，钱就不再以重量为名称了，而改称宝。如"大唐通宝"、"唐国通宝"、"太平通宝"、"永乐通宝"、"康熙通宝"等等。货币称宝是有其社会意义的，这就是货币的国威增大了。 Tongbao is the name of Chinese copper coins from the Tang to the late Qing Dynasty.Tang Gao Zu (the first emperor of Tang Dynatsty) casting Kaiyuan Tongbao（开元通宝）. Kaiyuan means to create a new era.Tongbao was used from then on and followed by the name of the reign title, dynasty, or country. From the Tang Dynasty, the currency was no longer named after weight, and was renamed Bao. Such as "Datang Tongbao", "TangGuo TongBao", "Tai Ping Tong Bao", "Yong le Tongbao", "Kang Xi Tong Bao" and so on. The currency being named "Bao"has its social significance,which means the manglifying of national strength. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HashiriKata Posted June 7, 2009 at 12:13 PM Report Share Posted June 7, 2009 at 12:13 PM I think the characters in photo 5 & 10 are 通賓同治. As for what they mean here, we'll need a native speaker's help. The language in the photo 7 is not Chinese, by the way. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skylee Posted June 7, 2009 at 12:22 PM Report Share Posted June 7, 2009 at 12:22 PM It is 同治通寶 (when it is a coin, you can be sure that 99.9% of time the words are 通寶), meaning it is a coin made during the Tongzhi period of Qing Dynasty. And there were 2 official languages in Qing Dynasty, the Chinese that we use today and the Manchu langauge. Those in photo 7 is, I guess, the latter. PS - when I saw Hashirikata's post I thought he was talking about some kind of cocktail drink (punch ~ 賓治). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trien27 Posted June 7, 2009 at 01:15 PM Report Share Posted June 7, 2009 at 01:15 PM (edited) Chinese is known to be written "right to left, top to bottom" reading format: This coin proves it. On the Chinese side, read right to left = 同治, tongzhi [Emperor Tongzhi's name**]. Read top to bottom = 通寳, tongbao ***. The other side will be the Emperor's reign name in Mancu*. For these types of coins, where one side is Chinese and the other is Mancu*, the head or top side is in Chinese, while the tail or bottom side is in Mancu.* For the first and third links, Skylee has told you what it means. For the second, it would be the Emperor's reign name in Mancu*, in this case, "Tongzhi". Mostly they will either use the Chinese name and find a match in Mancu* or use the Emperor's reign name in Mancu* [i don't this in Mancu*]. EDIT: Skylee, I think you should make the characters "同治通寳" as big as HarishiKata's 通賓同治 like this: 同治通寳 Before 1956-58, the Chinese characters, as a standard, were never officially simplified. Today, if you go to China, the official character is 宝, not 寳. You might or might not see the phrase as 同治通寳. If you don't, then you'll probably see "同治通宝". I forgot where I read this from, but that was a long time ago when I read a book on Chinese & Mancu* loanwords. * The romanized "c" in Manchu words = ch, as in "kitchen", so there's no need to romanize it as "Manchu", where the "ch" is purely for foreign readers. It's actually "Manju" in Manchu, and Manj in Mongolian. The "j" of "Manj" is written in Mongolian Cyrillic the same as the Russian letter "zh". ** See here for more information on Emperor Tongzhi: Emperor Tongzhi *** Short for 通用元寳, tongyong yuanbao. 通用, tongyong = for general use / widely circulated. 元寳, yuanbao = a government sponsored currency [About the size of a small nugget?] in the Qing dynasty, usually in gold or silver. The silver ones are the ones that everyone can use. The golden ones are for officials & the nobility to use. If a commoner got their hands on a golden yuan bao, then they might be considered a thief. Edited June 7, 2009 at 02:30 PM by trien27 Missing quotation mark Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
studentyoung Posted June 8, 2009 at 02:11 AM Report Share Posted June 8, 2009 at 02:11 AM http://i329.photobucket.com/albums/l385/abram85/07.jpg The characters in this link are Manchu’s characters. the right is “hafu” http://www.anaku.cn/msc.php?input=hafu&font=1wpc=5&fontsize=25&cspace=10&fcolor=Black&bcolor=White the left is “boo” http://www.anaku.cn/msc.php?input=boo&font=1wpc=5&fontsize=25&cspace=10&fcolor=Black&bcolor=White Hafuboo is equal to 通宝/通寶 yuanbao in Chinese characters. Cheers! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and select your username and password later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.