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Southern Song Dynasty
Shaoding Tongbao
(Upward Four Version 2)
南宋
紹定通寶
(背上四版型二)
Item number: A4520
Year: AD 1231
Material: Bronze
Size: 24.2 x 24.1 x 1.3 mm
Weight: 3.7 g
Provenance: Spink 2023
This coin is a “Shaoding Tongbao” minted during the reign of Emperor Lizong of the Southern Song Dynasty. The coin’s distinctive feature is its inscriptions in a regular script style.
This is a square-holed coin, with a square hole in the centre, The obverse side with the four characters “Shaoding Tongbao” inscribed in regular script around it.
The reverse side also features a central square hole, with the character “Four” indicating that it was minted in the fourth year of the Shaoding era.
The Shaoding Tongbao was minted during the Shaoding era of Emperor Lizong’s reign (AD 1228–AD 1233) in the Southern Song Dynasty. It served as an important currency of the time, along with the Shaoding Yuanbao, although the Yuanbao coins are relatively rarer. These coins were made from either copper or iron. The denominations of the Tongbao coins included one-cash, two-cash, and three-cash types, while the Yuanbao coins are known to have denominations of three-cash and five-cash.