Column 專欄
Sapeque and Sapeque-Like Coins in Cochinchina and Indochina Howard A. Daniel III (USA) I am working on the third edition of my French Southeast Asia Coins & Currency catalog and was checking my cross-references, to include World War II Remembered by Fred Schwan & Joe Boling. I was reading the text about the zinc 1/4 Cent coin minted in Osaka for French Indochina when what Joe Boling wrote there made me want to write this article. He wrote: This coin was made in Japan for Indochina but why this particular denomination is a mystery. It is also too early for this alloy: Japan did not start coining in tin-zinc until 1944. The second question is about the metal and the answer is; Indochina ordered the coin in zinc. The French and the Vietnamese often used zinc in their coinage during bad
They were accepted by the French and the foreign merchants at 600 to 1000 to a Mexican or Spanish 8 Reals (1 Piastre) depending on their weight and metal (zinc, tin and/ or copper). For the local people, low value coins were perfect for their use. But a French and/or foreign merchant in Saigon was likely dissatisfied with the Vietnamese Sapeques. He had several 1870-dated patterns minted by Dietrich Uhlhorn. The Tu Duc Thong Bao merchants was close for a foreigner not skilled in writing it. The 4 grams weight was likely made to match the Vietnamese 10 Phan weight of 3.7783 grams, which was the official “full” weight for their cash-style coins, but it was probably too expensive to mint and ship from Europe to Saigon.
times. The first question is why this particular denomination? The Vietnamese (& Lao and Cambodian) people used very low value coins in their economy down at the hamlet and village level. Coins higher than 5 Cents were rarely needed by them except when paying their annual head or other taxes to the French. The following is a description of the low value coins available to them. Emperor Tu Duc was ruling Dai Viet (Viet Nam later) when the French (and Spanish) military started attacking his country from 1858. In 1862, France forced him to cede the southern third to them, which they renamed the Colony of Cochin-China. The emperor’s cast cash-style coins (Sapeques in French) were in circulation at that time.
Daniel Collection KM-Unlisted/Lec-1
This private effort was dropped, but Saigon’s need for their own Sapeque must have been strong. 10,000 of the 1,000,000 of the 1875-K 1 Centime coins brought to Saigon to circulate with their French Francs and Centimes coins were holed at the Saigon Arsenal. When holed, this coin weighed less than 1 gram and it was rejected by the Vietnamese so the process was halted.
Daniel Collection KM-1/Lec-2
Then the French created their own 1879-dated CochinChine Sapeque coins and circulated them at 500 to 1 piastre. They must have been forced onto the Vietnamese when paid for their goods or services because they still preferred their own Emperor Tu Duc cast coins even though they were valued at 600 to 1000 to 1 Piastre, which was lower value than the French Sapeques. Courtesy of Art-Hanoi.com Barker-103
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東 亞 泉 志
THE JOURNAL OF EAST ASIAN NUMISMATICS