Vietnamese / Annam coins : 4 tien and 1/4 lang

Hi all !

This monday I found those two interesting coins, so far I think I have a 4 tien coin of Tu Duc, and a ¼ lang coin from Thieu Tri.

I only have a kitchen scale at the moment, so my weighing are sadly a bit approximative. The 4 tien weights between 15g and 16g, and is 31mm in diameter ; the ¼ lang is around 10g and is 34mm in diameter. Both are non-magnetic.

What do you think about them ?

Thanks in advance for your help ! 🙂

Hello

How did you find that kind of coin?

Something strange with the Dragon…

https://mdc.mc/catalogue/vente-aux-encheres-numismatiques-7/lot-814/

https://www.ma-shops.com/wallinmynt/item.php?id=13154

And for the second one

Something hurt my eyes with the caracter

https://auctions.stacksbowers.com/lots/view/3-82ZRB/annam-4-tien-nd-tu-duc-1848-83-ngc-au-55

Hi, thanks a lot for your answer !

I found them in an antique store in France among European silver coins. Considering the price, it is clear that the seller had no idea of what they were.

The dragon is indeed a bit different from the example you linked, but there seems to be some variations in design depending of the examples. For example : https://mdc.bidinside.com/en/lot/6219/annam-thieu-tri-1841-1847-5-tien-/#gallery-2 and https://www.ma-shops.com/wallinmynt/item.php?id=13154 What I note however, is that the field on my coin is very similar to the one sold by MDC (good pictures here : https://onebid.pl/pl/%E3%82%B3%E3%82%A4%E3%83%B3-Annam-Thieu-Tri-18411847-14-de-lang-ND-18411847/864091 ) with those faint horizontal lines behind the dragon. Mine also has the same tiny dots on the obverse (for characters alignement ?). Not sure what to think therefore …

And thanks again for your help, I was having a hard time finding someone online that could help me with those ! 

Regarding the 4 tien you linked, it does look a bit different indeed. However I think it looks way more similar to this one from MDC : https://mdc.bidinside.com/en/lot/5019/annam-tu-duc-1847-1883-4-tien-/#gallery-2 

EDIT : and the one on Numista has a third different look : N#16060 

Yes you're right

maybe  you can send them to a grading compagny to be sure

but first a good scale and a density test could be a good start

Indeed ! I will get a precision scale soon; how do you do a density test ?

Regarding the differences, and I could be wrong, I read that the flans were cast and filed, then hammered, then gouged to bring out details. If that's right, that would explain the differences in design imo.

Thanks again for your help ! 

For the density test

https://en.numista.com/forum/topic137471.html