Found old Chinese silver bar, need help!

Oct 20, 2021
4
21
New to the forum, sorry if I’m a newbie…


Just wanted to know what hallmarks are in the back of this Chinese silver bar..

I tried to look it up myself and had no luck….

Thanks for any help or ideas!
 

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Red-Coat

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Dec 23, 2019
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Welcome to Tnet

Very nice. It looks to be an "Annan bar" (also "Annam bar") used for trade and payment of taxes in Annan Province (the Tang Protectorate of Vietnam). There's a bit of background on a previous thread in relation to a late 1800s example at the link below. Yours looks to be early 1800s:


We really need someone familiar with the language and hopefully our member Yang Hao will pop up with his usual helpful insight. I'll drop him a private message asking if he can help.

The characters could say a number of things... Imperial reign to give us a date, name of a merchant, specific purpose such as for tobacco tax, the currency units it represented or any combination of those. The exact weight will also be helpful in determining its intended currency value if you can provide that information.
 

Red-Coat

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For got to add,

The bar weighs 223Grams

Thanks for that. The Vietnamese ones are the most common, were usually made from melted down foreign coins, have a consistent assay of .99 fine and with the larger ones valued at 10 and 5 Lang. The general standard was around 38g of fine silver per Lang but yours doesn’t fit with that… although there are examples which don’t, and presumably these relate to fluctuations in silver prices, lower standards of silver, or alignment to currencies other than the Lang. Similar pieces were in use in Thailand, Hong Kong and China, primarily in the opium trade… so we really do need some character translations.
 

Yang Hao

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Below is a photo example of what appears to be what is in your photos. In Chinese it is: 道光年铸平足紋銀條。

It appears to be from china made in the Qing dynasty during emperor Dao Guang's reign 1821-1850 and it says it's fine silver. Hope this helps.


daoguan.jpeg
 

Red-Coat

Gold Member
Dec 23, 2019
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Below is a photo example of what appears to be what is in your photos. In Chinese it is: 道光年铸平足紋銀條。

It appears to be from china made in the Qing dynasty during emperor Dao Guang's reign 1821-1850 and it says it's fine silver. Hope this helps.

That helps a great deal. Thank you once again Yang Hao.
 

OP
OP
B
Oct 20, 2021
4
21
Below is a photo example of what appears to be what is in your photos. In Chinese it is: 道光年铸平足紋銀條。

It appears to be from china made in the Qing dynasty during emperor Dao Guang's reign 1821-1850 and it says it's fine silver. Hope this helps.


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Digger RJ

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New to the forum, sorry if I’m a newbie…


Just wanted to know what hallmarks are in the back of this Chinese silver bar..

I tried to look it up myself and had no luck….

Thanks for any help or ideas!
Welcome to Tnet!!! Very Nice!!! Congrats!!!
 

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