Four Chinese characters Kai Yuan Tong Bao ("The Inaugural currency"), slanting horizontal lines in Kai, dot in Yuan  / Blank. 25mm, 3.95 grams. Issued in ca.618-907 AD. Hartill 14.11var (normal Kai). SKU T809-18791

Very rare type with the dot in yuan and the slanting lines in Kai.

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.