Four Chinese characters Kai Yuan Tong Bao ("The Inaugural currency") / Either blank or with a crescent, dot or dash. Each one is around 24-25mm, 3 grams or so. Hartill 14.1-2 (for the early type); Hartill 14.3 (for the middle type) and Hartill 14.6ff (for the late type).

A mix of early, middle and late types, many with different marks on the reverse. A few Huichang Kai Yuans (with a mint name on the reverse) are also mixed in. Mix of types, a few with minor problems, but mostly decent quality coins. The picture is of the actual coins in this group.

USD $5 per coin. If you want more than one coin, please select the desired quantity from the pulldown menu above or change the quantity at checkout.

The Tang Dynasty, with its capital at Changan (present-day Xian), the most populous city in the world at the time, is generally regarded as a high point in Chinese civilization - a golden age of cosmopolitan culture. Its territory, acquired through the military campaigns of its early rulers, was greater than that of the Han period, and it rivalled that of the later Yuan Dynasty, Ming Dynasty and Qing Dynasty. In 907 the Tang Dynasty was ended when Zhu Wen, now a military governor, deposed the last emperor of Tang, Emperor Ai of Tang, and took the throne for himself (known posthumously as Emperor Taizu of Later Liang). He established the Later Liang Dynasty, which inaugurated the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period. A year later the deposed Emperor Ai was poisoned to death by Zhu Wen.

This coin is unconditionally guaranteed to be authentic.