Digital museum showcasing the collection of worldwide legends over the years! 千古不朽博物館展示多年來收藏的世界傳奇故事!
Nguyen Dynasty
Khai Dinh BaoKien
(Yin-Yang)
阮朝
啟定寶鑑
(背二儀)
Item number: M358
Year: AD 1916-1925
Material: Sliver
Size: 30 x 30 mm
Weight: 34.75 g (with box)
Manufactured by: Hué and Haiphong
Provenance: Stack’s Bowers 2024
This is a ” Khai Dinh Bao Kien ” medal from the Khai Dinh era of Vietnam’s Nguyen Dynasty. At the centre of the obverse side, there is a pearl that appears to radiate flames outward. The four characters “啟定寶鑑” are engraved sequentially in the order of “top, bottom, right, and left.” There are two holes, one at the top and one at the bottom, with no decorative border around the coin.
On the reverse side, the centre features a Taiji (Yin-Yang) symbol, flanked on both sides by flame-shaped pearls. Clouds are depicted in all four cardinal directions.
The ” Khai Dinh Bao Kien ” was a medal minted during the reign of Emperor Khai Dinh (Khai Dinh Bao Kien) of the Nguyen Dynasty. By this time, the dynasty was in its final stages, with French colonial rulers exerting full control over its political and economic affairs. The Banque de l’Indochine, a branch of the National Bank of France, had established operations in Vietnam and issued currency, gradually replacing the Nguyen Dynasty’s increasingly devalued coinage due to the weakening state of the empire.
During Khai Dinh’s reign, the emperor functioned largely as a puppet under French influence. The coins minted and issued by the Nguyen Dynasty had lost their practical value in the market, becoming almost obsolete as currency. They retained significance only as symbolic artefacts of a declining dynasty.
Before the Nguyen Dynasty ruled Vietnam, there may have been a similar system of awards and medals, but there is a lack of precise records about it. It wasn’t until the arrival of the French in Vietnam in AD 1840 that Europeans first documented a medal reward system resembling Western practises in the imperial court of Hue during the Nguyen Dynasty.
Based on the metal material, one can roughly determine the rank of the “Tien.” The highest rank, known as “Kim Tien” (Gold Tien), has four levels. In the early period of the Nguyen Dynasty, they were made of real gold, but later they gradually shifted to gold plating or basic metals. The next level, “Ngan Tien” (Silver Tien), sometimes follows European practises by indicating rank differences, but many “Silver Tiens” mainly display the regnal year of the emperor without specific rank distinctions.