Chinese Cash Catalogs

Zhou Diye (formerly xiangxiangkafeizha at eBay) has some valuable Chinese cash catalogs for sale at his webpage. I will review them, starting from left to right, top row.

First, I want to say that if you are already using my Northern Song Dynasty Cash Variety Guide you will be able to use all of these catalogs, because they use the same Chinese numismatic descriptions for varieties. All these catalogs are variety catalogs, and thus quite helpful.

1. 大明泉谱 Da Ming Quan Pu (Coins of the Ming Dynasty) — A very complete variety catalog of Ming and Ming Pretenders. I use it to catalog my own reference collection. Having this catalog, you will be able to sort through bulk quantities of Ming period cash intelligently. For a full review of this catalog, click HERE.

2. 北宋铜钱 Bei Song Tong Qian (Copper Coins of the Northern Song Dynasty) — The best variety catalog for Northern Song cash to have come out of China. Different from my catalogs which are based on the Japanese original Kosen Daizen, but just as helpful. For a full review of this catalog, click HERE. I use the official hardcover publication. The edition sold by Zhou Diye is a ‘private’ reprint.

3. Qing Dynasty Palace Cash and Xian Feng Large Cash — Two reprints of older works, the second volume in this set of two is more useful than the first.

4. Qing Dynasty: Shunzhi to Kangxi — A reprint of an excellent work that can be useful as a supplement to Burger's Ch'ing Cash until 1735.

5. Qing Dynasty: Shunzhi and Kangxi to Qianlong — A reprint in two volumes of an old Japanese catalog that will be useful to Qing specialists, as a supplement to Hartill's Cast Chinese Coins.

6. 开元通宝图说 Kai Yuan Tong Bao Tu Shuo (Kai Yuan Variety Catalog) — The only available variety catalog for Tang Dynasty and other Kai Yuan Tong Bao cash, about 2000 varieties are cataloged, with rubbings, rarity guide, descriptions and variety numbers, easy to follow Chinese text. It's the best I have yet found for this subtle series.

7. Wu Zhu Variety Catalog — Another ‘private’ reprint of what appears to be a very comprehensive catalog of all the coins of the wu zhu type. Seeing it almost makes me want to collect wu zhu cash again, but my commitment to the study and collecting of Northern Song cash takes up most of my numismatic time.

For additional remarks about catalogs useful in Chinese classical numismatics, see my post Buy the Book Before You Buy the Coin.