ORIENTAL.
Oriental coins are not as attractive as other varieties, though there are special coins among them which have no rival in historic importance. Antique coins from the East were usually without device, and, their legends being rudely inscribed in a dead language, proved frequently to be sealed fountains to the thirsting antiquarian. Therefore in cases marked “Oriental” the visitor is undetermined where to begin to study, and often decides to give it but little time.
Those having for device the sacred peacock are from Burmah; there is, however, in the division marked “Selections” a very curious coin belonging to that country, which certainly formed a part of its earliest currency. It is a common gravel-stone, encased in a circling band of brass.
Coins of Siam.
The coins of Siam are much sought for. Some of them, known to European travelers as “bullet money,” are lumps of gold or silver, hammered by rude implements into a doubtful roundness, and a few Siamese characters stamped irregularly upon them. The sacred elephant is found on a large proportion of their money. A Siamese coin in the Cabinet, of modern date, is quite handsome in both workmanship and design. On the obverse is the sacred elephant in ponderous proportion, which delights the eyes of the devout, and the reverse presents a group of three pagodas, finely drawn. In the case marked “Selections” is a Siamese coin of gold, comparatively modern, called “Tecal,” corresponding in some respects to the “Shekel,” or “Oxen,” of biblical fame.
Chinese Coins.
On the south side of the first section is a case of seven hundred coins of the Celestial Empire. With but few exceptions these coins are bronzed. Dynasty succeeds dynasty; usurpation, insurrection, are all writ in bronze. The Chinese assert an uninterrupted coinage for forty-one centuries. The manuscript attesting this is in the case, and was prepared under authority. Large numbers of their coins were considered charms, sufficient to protect the owner against fever, or even the more dreaded horrors of spiritual menace. In this connection it may be said that the Chinese had an exalted reverence for the coin-charm, and a small coin was often placed in the mouth of the dead (now, if a Chinaman dies in California, a small silver United States coin is placed on his tongue). These coins were covered with cabalistic characters, symbolic animals, birds, etc. Two worthy of notice in this regard, and said to be of the oldest issue, are Nos. 1 and 2. The first might be mistaken for an iron safe-key; the second is known as the “razor coin,” its form and almost its size being that of a razor.
In another case, appropriately labeled, is the Chinese porcelain money. They are the only people who have made porcelain a “legal tender,” though it would appear that almost every part of the three kingdoms of nature has been laid under contribution. The specimen here may be mistaken for the popular Chinese sleeve-button, bought in any bazaar for a few cents. The Chinese, as did also the Africans, utilized the small sea-shells for trade. In the same case are some of the variety legalized. Ten small shells made one “cash.” This is a small, round, copper-bronzed coin, with a square hole in the centre. The Chinese dames of high degree wore such strung around their throats. One thousand of them are equal to our dollar. The Japanese, however, outcount their neighbors, as they have a bronze coin called the “One-hundredth,” of which just seven thousand make one Spanish dollar.
Shell money of pure gold, “or gold beaten into small solid shells, was made by those natives who supplied the Portuguese slave-traders with slaves,” and was called by the traders “Spondylus Macutus,” from which, some contend, came the slang term “spondulics.” Forty of those small coins, each worth about a dollar of Spanish money, was a high price for a slave.