Sunday, October 16, 2011

162. Sarawak 1 cent 1870 with chinese characters

image 1: obverse and reverse of the coin

image 2: obverse of the coin

image 3: chinese characters on the coin

This coin was acquired at an antique shop at Kota Tinggi, Johor.

There are Chinese characters which were being etched by a sharp object onto this coin. As I am illiterate in Chinese, many thanks goes to blogger whycollect for helping me deciphering these Chinese characters.

The characters read as "Da Tou Xian", which he supposes the etcher wanted to imply "God of Longevity".

And another commentator, Kreditanstalt, had suggested that the characters "Da Tao Xian" could also lead to A Foreign's (Orang Puteh's) Cent. This is because the term "Xian" had been used to indicate "Cent" on early Hong Kong stamps and terms "Da Tao" is also used to indicate a foreigner.


It is quite interesting I suppose.

Collection of En Naseer.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi mnfaj,
Judging from the pictures, the three chinese characters do not look like countermarks but etched onto the surface of the coin by a sharp object.
Anyway, the characters read as "Da Tou Xian," which we suppose the etcher wanted to imply "god of longevity."
It would be extremely interesting if another such specimen can be found.
Thanks a lot for sharing, mnfaj :)

depankanta said...

Salam mnfaj,
Betul kata whycollect,ini kesan objek tajam tiada kesan die..dapat juga depankanta tumpang belajar tiga perkataan"Da Tou Xian.".Tulisan cina senang diukir begini,semuanya garis lurus.Kalau tulisan jawi atau tamil,banyak la akan jadi error!.hehe
Terima kasih banyak2 mnfaj & whycollect...

mnfaj said...

Hi whycollect.
Yes this is indeed not a counterstamp, countermark or chopmark. Wow thank you so much for the translation. Wonder what is the purpose of this characters onto this coin.
Thank you so much for helping!

mnfaj said...

Salam depankanta,
Itulah makin banyak termasuk dalam hobi ini, makin banyak yang menarik dijumpai. Terima kasih depankanta. :)

Kreditanstalt said...

But "xian" is the same character used on early Hong Kong stamps to indicate "cents". "Da Tou" is also used to indicate a foreigner. That of course is Brooke, the "white rajah of Sarawak". Thus this could mean "a foreign (white man's) one cent coin"...

mnfaj said...

Hi Kreditanstalt,
Wow that is a very valuable information for us. Thank you for sharing!

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