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There are few recorded coins belonging to the later Le family from the
period of about 1578 to 1658. Just before this period Le The Tong issued
a coin with the inscription of Gia Thai Thong Bao
The figures right show four images of rubbings. Figure 1 shows a rubbing
of the Thinh Duc piece under study. Figure 2 shows a rubbing of a different
Thinh Duc which is listed in the Vietnamese coin section of Ding
Fu Bao Catalog. The same rubbing of the same piece was borrowed from Ding Fu
Bao
and is listed in "Illustrated plates of Ancient Chinese Coins". Both works
list the coin in the unassigned Vietnamese coin section and neither assign
it to the reign of Thinh Duc.
The piece in figure 1 under study would appear to be a contemporary
fake made by taking a common coin from the much earlier reign of Hong
Duc
The shape and calligraphy of all three characters are exactly the same
which is virtually impossible for two coins made almost 200 years apart.
Some of the most obvious features that are the same include the unusually
large triangular head of the character 'Thong', the left hand vertical
stroke and dot of the 'Thong', and the very unequal size of the feet of
the 'Bao'.
Further evidence for the recasting comes from the size of the coin in
figure 1. When a coin is cast from a master pattern, the master is used
to make an impression in a material like sand or clay to make a mould.
This mould is then filled with hot liquid bronze which cools and solidifies.
The bronze solidifies at about 900 degrees C and will then shrink a characteristic
5% before fully cooling. Figure 4 is a composite image of the rubbings
in figures 1 and 3 where it can be seen that the coin in figure 1 is approximately
5% smaller then the one in figure 3. In figure 4 the inner rims of the
two pieces have been aligned on the left-hand side and the shrinkage can
easily be seen by the misalignment of the rim on the right-hand side. A
comparison of the inner rim must be made because the size of the outer
rim may change because of wear or filing during manufacture.
A final point must be made about the patina because if the coin is a
recent forgery the patina must be artificial. Although the patina is appealing,
particularly on the back of the coin, a comparison between the coin in
figure 1 and three other confirmed recent forgeries suggest that the patina
is indeed fake. These two of these three other forgeries are also Vietnamese
coins and one was made by the same process of changing the top character.
It is quite possible that more than one of these fakes were made by the
same forger.
Allan Barker
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The later
Le dynasty was founded by Le Loi in 1428 and was the last of the great
Vietnamese dynasties. It retained unified power over the kingdom until
1527 when the throne was usurped by Dang Dung of the Mac family. The
Mac
dynasty was established in 1527 but control of the country would become
divided between three powerful families, the Mac, Trinh, and
Nguyen. The
Le remained on the throne as puppets supported by the Trinh family and
issued some currency after 1527. The Mac dynasty also issued official currency
until about 1573.
during the reign of
Gia
Thai (1573-1577). Just after this period coins were again issued by Le
Than Tong during his third reign of Vinh Tho
(1658-1661), and were issued
in great quantity. However there are few if any coins that can be assigned
to Le Than Tong's second reign of Thinh Duc
, from 1653 to 1656.
The final conclusive
evidence for the recasting is shown in the microscopic view the top character
in figure 5. When the top character was removed from the original Hong
Duc coin a little bit of residual metal was left from the character
'Hong'.
One of the most prominent differences between the character 'Hong' and
'Thinh' are the two short strokes on the left-hand side of the character
'Hong'. Residual metal from the larger of these two strokes can be seen
in the middle of the circle in figure 5. Similar but less obvious features
can be seen at other places along the edge of the character 'Thinh', but
are not seen near any of the other three characters.