Northern Song Cash Variety Catalog

A lot has happened since I originally published my cash variety guides in the form of journal-sized booklets based on Fugo Senshi and Kosen Daizen. My reference collection has expanded and so has my collection of reference materials. The latest book to join my reference library is the catalog 北宋铜钱 Bei Song Tong Qian, Copper Coins of the Northern Song Dynasty, which I just received today as a gift from a new but valued friend in Hong Kong. This appears to be the best variety catalog for Northern Song copper coins that I have ever seen come out of China. It is a companion volume to a reference which I have owned for a few years, 两宋铁钱 Liang Song Tie Qian, Iron Coins of the Two Song Dynasties, and which I have reviewed in my original blog. Both catalogs achieve a high level of scholarship and quality in every detail. I am looking forward to using 北宋铜钱 Bei Song Tong Qian to correct the deficiencies in my original Kosen Daizen based guides. The corrections will involve few, if any, variety number changes, only additions. The original Kosen Daizen variety names will be expanded by borrowings from other catalogs.

This blog will journalize the development of the new online revision of my catalog, but it will not be the catalog itself. The new Northern Song Cash variety catalog will appear as an online catalog at first, and then later as a printed volume.

The first item of business will be to release in PDF format on the current blog downloadable sorting grids of the varieties as they now stand. The Schjöth catalog numbers will be omitted from the rubbings, leaving only the variety numbers and the rarity indicators. These sorting grids can be downloaded, printed and used to study and classify your collection by comparison to the rubbings. This will not enable you to classify every coin, however, because the variety names and the commentaries are needed when similar rubbings cannot be differentiated, but you will be able to classify at least most of them.

Finally, blogs read from bottom up. That is, they are chronicles where the latest entry comes first. I will have the Archive in the side panel sort earliest to latest, but the posts themselves cannot be sorted that way. Whatever happens, just remember, the latest post comes first.

Please come back and watch the new catalog take shape!