Background
The Kashgar Mint designed and minted Guangxu silver coins in the late Qing dynasty of four denominations, namely, one mace, two mace, three mace, and five mace. Since the early Guangxu silver coins did not have Chinese characters to show the place of minting on the obverse, only the four characters which mean Guangxu silver coin, and two characters to show the denomination, it is known as the six-character silver coin in the numismatic community (figure 1). As for the one-mace six-character silver coin, it can be divided into five types according to dates, including undated, AH 1310, AH 1311, AH 13X9, and AH 1322. In AH 1313, the Kashgar Mint made a major change to the inscription of the Guangxu silver coin, that is, the Chinese characters that refer to Kashgar were added to the obverse (figure 2). Since then, the sixcharacter silver coins retired from history, and Kashgar Guangxu silver coins were minted in the following eight years.
 Figure 1 Undated One-Mace Six-Character Silver Coin |
 Figure 2 AH 1313 Kashgar Guangxu One-Mace Silver Coin |
Origin of the Controversy
Due to my interest in Xinjiang coins, I have been a keen visitor the major coin and auction websites to collect pictures of rare Xinjiang coins. When collecting the pictures of the one-mace six-character silver coins of various years, I happened to find an AH 13X9 coin on the PCGS website (figure 3). According to my experience, one-mace six-character silver coins were minted from early AH 1310 to AH 1312, and the Kashgar Mint produced the Guangxu silver coins with the place name Kashgar on the obverse after AH 1313, with only a small number of long-flower varieties restruck in AH 1322. This AH 13X9 six-character one mace coin is somewhat mysterious. As it is hard to identify the year of this coin through the image on the PCGS official website, driven by my curiosity I followed the trail to find the SBP website to see the original auction records.
Figure 3 The picture of the 13X9 Six-Character One Mace Coin on the PCGS official website
Through careful observation of the Moslem calendar date on the coin, it is confirmed that the coin has a palindrome number 9 on the reverse. Yet, the number in front of 9 is a flat, long dot like a teardrop, which is exactly how the palindrome zero is written, so the number can be regarded as both 1 and 0. Since the six-character silver coins with denominations of two mace, three mace, and five mace were not minted after AH 1313, people tend to identify its minting year as AH 1309. After reviewing various catalogs, I found that the mainstream catalogs (Sinkiang Gold and Silver Coin Catalog, Concise Catalogue of Modern Chinese Vintage Coins, and A Catalog of Chinese Silver Coins) published in recent years all identify the year of this variety of the six-character one mace coin as AH 1309.
When I worked to find the answer, I asked myself several questions:
1. If the undated variety is the original strike, why does only one-mace coin have the date AH 1309 when other six-character silver coins are undated?
2. Is it too subjective to identify it as from 1309 just because of the continuity of four years 1309, 1310, 1311, and 1312?
3. Because the Kashgar Mint stopped minting sixcharacter silver coins in AH 1313, it is entirely dependent on logic to think the one-mace six-character coin was minted before AH 1313.
Evidence
According to my experience in collecting Xinjiang coins, I believe that this one-mace six-character coin should have been minted in 1319, for the following reasons.
I. Documentary Record
According to the Qing dynasty Wang Shunan edited Xinjiang Record - A Record of Agricultural Economy and Fiscal Situation (《新疆圖志 · 食貨志》) by Wang Shunan (王樹楠) in the Qing dynasty, "in the eighteenth year of Guangxu's reign, or AH 1309, Kashgar Intendent Li Zongbin (李宗賓) ordered alternate county leader Luo Zhengxiang (羅正湘) to make a trial in minting Guangxu silver coins, to mint one-mace, two-mace, and threemace coins initially, and to mint five-mace coins from the next year." 1
Judging from the existing coins, there are only one-mace, two-mace, and three-mace undated coins, while no fivemace undated coins have ever been found. Therefore, it is clear that the one-mace, two-mace, and three-mace undated coins are indeed coins that Kashgar Intendent Li Zongbin asked alternate county leader Luo Zhengxiang to mint in AH 1309.
After the success of trial minting, the Kashgar Mint minted Guangxu silver coins of four denominations on a large scale in the following year and added the year of the Moslem calendar on the reverse. This shows that the act of adding the year of minting on the reverse of the Guangxu silver coins began in AH 1310. Since the mintage of the undated one-mace six-character coin had already been completed, there is no reason for the Kashgar Mint to design another batch of one-mace coin dies with the year AH 1309 added.
II. Font style
The minting crafts and design style allow modern people to understand the ancient coins. By observing the Chinese writing and stroke style of the one-mace sixcharacter coins without date (figure 4), minted in AH 1310 (figure 5) and AH 1311 (figure 6), we can roughly see that undated, AH 1310 and AH 1311 coins were produced with dies engraved by the same die maker. The second stroke of the character "壹" (one) on these three kinds of coins is written down to the left, and the right side of "緒" has a downward point. In contrast, in terms of the AH 13X9 one-mace six-character coin (fig. 7), the second stroke of the character "壹" is thick and runs down to the right, and the character "緒" does not have a dot at the bottom right, which differs greatly from the above three coins. Therefore, it is less likely that the coin was struck around AH 1310.
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III. Examples of One-Mace Six-Character coins minted after AH 1313
As evidenced by the existing coin, the Kashgar Mint did not completely stop minting the six-character silver coins after AH 1313. For some reason, the Kashgar Mint re-engraved the dies after many years and minted the famous AH 1322 Xinjiang long-flower variety one-mace Guangxu silver coin (see figure 8), which supports the fact that the one-mace six-character coins were restruck. Therefore, it is not beyond reason that there were AH 1319 one-mace six-character restrike coins.
Figure 8 AH 1322 One-Mace Six-Character Coin with long flowers on the left
IV. Existing Coins
According to my experience, even if the mintage is small, the coins which had been minted and issued in bulk will definitely leave traces in history. I browsed all the major coin websites and finally found a one-mace six-character coin with a repair on the obverse.
Although the obverse of this coin has a small repair, it can still be seen from the font style that it is in line with the one-mace six-character silver coins in the discussion. Its reverse remains in its original state without signs of revising. As for the writing style of Moslem calendar AH 1319, the number written in front of the 9 is the same as the 1 of 13, which is direct proof of the fact that this variety of the one-mace six-character coin was minted in AH 1319 (figure 10)
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Figure 11 Existing Coin
V. Assumption
Only the one-mace six-character silver coin appears to have restrikes, and the number of one-mace six-character coins (AH 1310, AH 1311, AH 1319, AH 1322) is even larger than Kashgar Guangxu one-mace silver coins (AH 1313). For this reason, the author assumes that, because of the small diameter of the one-mace die, coupled with the inferior minting conditions in the Kashgar region than in eastern China, the life of the coin dies was shorter and the dies were replaced frequently. To extend the life of the dies and increase the success rate of striking, the Kashgar Mint managers chose to use the coin dies for one-mace sixcharacter coins which had less character inscription and were easier to mint.
The Kashgar Mint's preference for minting dies with fewer characters is also evident on the one-mace coin. The AH 1310 Guangxu one-mace coin only has four Chinese characters on the obverse (figure 12); the AH 1310 Guangxu one-mace coin without denomination on the reverse only has four Chinese characters on the obverse (figure 13); the AH 1322 Kashgar one-mace with flowers only has four Chinese characters on the obverse (figure 14); the AH 1323 Kashgar Guangxu Yuanbao one-mace coin only has two Chinese characters on the obverse (figure 15). The above existing coins all support my assumption.
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Conclusion
After reviewing historical documents, comparing existing coins, analyzing the shapes and styles, and logical reasoning, it can be determined that the one-mace sixcharacter coin was a restrike in AH 1319, correcting the conclusion in the past sources that it was minted in AH 1309. There are only a few existing AH 1319 one-mace six-character coins, as it is a hard-to-find Xinjiang onemace coin. Almost all known AH 1319 Xinjiang one-mace coins have been repaired, and it is hard to one without repair.
A large number of historical documents from the late Qing dynasty have been lost, which makes the clues to study Xinjiang coins scarce and fragmented. As is far as possible, the coins should be researched to enhance our knowledge of the history of the time through careful research. Note： 1 Wang Shunan, Xinjiang Record – A Record of Agricultural Economy and Fiscal Situation, Qing dynasty, Cultural Relics Press, 2021.
(Special thanks to SBP Hong Kong, Huaxia Ancient Coin Website, and Auction World for providing the images.)
Note：
1 Wang Shunan, Xinjiang Record – A Record of Agricultural Economy and Fiscal Situation, Qing dynasty, Cultural Relics Press, 2021.