Help with a heavy Chinese brass weight (?) translation ?

[atticus-v]

Help with a heavy Chinese brass 'weight' (?) translation ?

Hi all, I was hoping for some assistance with this heavy bronze boat shaped weight

Its marked top and bottom with Chinese characters but I am baffled as to what it is

Any info would be greatly appreciated
Thanks from Scotland, Jon

 

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[taz42o]

Chinese Bronze Sycee-Shaped Stamp Seal - Lot No. 454

 

[Got_4by4]

It's a "MONEY BOWL", probably given to someone as a wealth charm.
But the characters look Korean to me.

 

[tonyluo]

It's not a stamp Seal - it's a Chinese Silver Ingot! (or "Sycee" as wikipedia defines it).

Read the wikipedia page about this stuff:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sycee

The two characters on the top are not Korean (as Got_4by4 suggested), but indeed Chinese. It's a number written in ancient Chinese text. Probably it says "twenty", but I am not quite sure. The first character is in an obsolete (or local)form that is no longer in use anywhere.

The really interesting part is the characters on its back. "大宋宣和二年" (Da Song Xuan He Er Nian), or literally "The 2nd Year of Xuan-He Period, Song Dynasty". What year is that? Well, as a mandarin translator let me translate it into modern and plain English for you - it's A.D. 1120!

This silver ingot was made about 9 centuries ago! A true treasure with great value, if it's not a modern replica...

Enjoy!