User:Donald Trung/List of Vietnamese cash coins by inscription/Improved list

Target page: Vietnamese cash. ✅. --Donald Trung (talk) 19:57, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

List of Vietnamese cash coins


During the almost 1000 years that Vietnamese copper cash coins were produced, they often significantly changed quality, alloy, size, and workmanship. In general, the coins bear the era name(s) of the monarch (Niên hiệu/) but may also be inscribed with mint marks, denominations, miscellaneous characters, and decorations.

Unlike Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and Ryūkyūan cash coins that always have the inscription in only one typeface, Vietnamese cash coins tend to be more idiosyncratic bearing sometimes Regular script, Seal script, and even Running script on the same coins for different characters, and it's not uncommon for one coin to be cast almost entirely in one typeface but has an odd character in another. Though early Vietnamese coins often bore the calligraphic style of the Chinese Khai Nguyên Thông Bảo (開元通寶) coin, especially those from the Đinh until the Trần dynasties.

The following coins were produced to circulate in Vietnam:

Unidentified Vietnamese coins from 1600 and later
At various times many rebel leaders proclaimed themselves as Lords, Kings , and Emperors , and had produced their own coinage with their reign names and titles on them, but as their rebellions would prove unsuccessful or brief their reigns and titles would go unrecorded in Vietnamese history, therefore coins produced by their rebellions cannot easily be classified. Coins were also often privately cast and these coins were sometimes of high quality or well-made imitations of imperial coinage, though often they would bear the same inscriptions as already circulating coinage, sometimes they would have "newly invented" inscriptions. The Nguyễn lords that ruled over Southern Vietnam had also produced their own coinage at various times as they were the de facto kings of the South, but as their rule wasn't official, it is currently unknown what coins can be attributed to which Nguyễn lord. Though since Edouard Toda has made his list in 1882 several of the coins that he had described as "originating from the Quảng Nam province" have been ascribed to the Nguyễn lords that the numismatists of his time couldn't identify. During the rule of the Nguyễn lords many foundries for private mintage were also opened and many of these coins bear the same inscriptions as government cast coinage or even bear newly invented inscriptions making it hard to attribute these coins.

The following list contains Vietnamese cash coins whose origins cannot be (currently) established: