The numismatic chronicle and journal of the Royal Numismatic Society

122 H. A. RAMSDEN.
ticulars about these coins, which have now been
assigned to the ancient city of Lin-tzu (^]g), will
no doubt be considered of sufficient interest to merit
being here minutely recorded.
It is true that the well-known series of beautiful
round bronze coins, made by the famous usurper
Wang Mang (3^) about A. D. 9-23, with raised
characters reading "Ta tsien wu shih" yC;OL~H> or
"Great coin worth fifty", counts among its numerous
issues one in lead where this inscription is found
incised ;
but as the legend is the same in all of them,
it cannot rightly claim to be regarded as a separate
series, since it is but a variety of the regular type.
I had in my hands a few years back at Hsiang fu
(SSrJi'f )> the s ite of the ancient capital of Kuan Tchung
after the
(BB41 )' a flat circular bronze coin, shaped
Yuan fa (IJfelj) series of early round money, with
the two characters incised on either side of the central
round hole ;
bat as this particular specimen appeared
to me suspicious at the time, I did not take the trouble
to investigate it further, and only mention it as it was
probably the copy of some genuine original. Perfectly
different was another and larger piece, apparently
authentic, which I had submitted to me at Tientsin
last year. It had also two incised characters diffe-
rent from those in the above, placed one on each
side of the central circular aperture, but I was unfortunately
unable to retain it long enough in my
possession to allow a rubbing to be taken, or even
closely examine it as carefully as it required, so that
I can no more than allude to it here. The above-cited
instances are the only cases, to my knowledge, where
the principal inscriptions, are to be found incised on