This is a Vietnamese coin of unknown date of issue. Due to the country’s frequent historical periods of political fragmentation, and even during times of dynastic unification, regional warlords and local elites often engaged in the independent minting of currency. Within this socio-political context, numerous coins emerged that cannot be correlated with any officially recognised reign title. Such coins are referred to in numismatic scholarship as “uncatalogued coins” (脫譜錢), denoting currency that falls outside the established historical and administrative records.
The coin follows the traditional Chinese-influenced square-holed cash coin design and is made of bronze. On the obverse, the four Chinese characters “Chí Đạo Nguyên Bảo” (至道元寶) are engraved in regular script, arranged in a clockwise sequence. The strokes of the character “道” on the right side are irregular, indicating that this coin was likely not minted in China. The reverse side of the coin is blank, without any inscriptions or decorative elements.
“Chí Đạo Nguyên Bảo” (至道元寶) was directly modelled after the “Zhidao Yuanbao” coins issued under the last reign title of Emperor Taizong of the Northern Song dynasty in China, used between AD 995 and 997. Given this temporal reference, the Vietnamese imitation of this coin could not have been minted earlier than the Anterior Lê dynasty period in Vietnamese history (AD 980–1009).
