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JULY, 1919] NOTES ON CURRENCY AND COINAGE AMONG THE BURMESE
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NOTES ON CURRENCY AND COINAGE AMONG THE BURMESE.
BY SIR RICHARD TEMPLE, Br.
(Continued from p. 56.)
90%
75%
Gold PURE raw gold is called k'ayabàtke. Shoddy commercial gold is called môjó. It
contains 50 % of valueless alloy. Gold, being so much more valuable a material than silver, the alloy is reckoned in mûs only, in naming these standards, thus :
Kômûpe 45 - 9 mýs out of 10 mûs of pure gold 16 = 95% Kômû Shi'mûpè - 87
85% Shi'mû
80% Ko'ni'mûpè Ko'pi'mû
70% Chaukmûpe
65% Chaukmû 617
- 60% Chô. = half gold
- 50% I have met with in the bazars another known standard, viz., kôjàtchaukma, or Rs. 9 mís 6 out of Rs. 10 of pure gold (k'ayabàt), = 96%.48
Prinsep adds, Useful Tables, p. 32, that the Burmese called gold mohars 81 mûs standard, i.e., shi'múpe, and I may add that English jewellers' gold they insist on calling brass. 49
It will be observed that, in reckoning the touch of silver and gold respectively, the sense of the terms is reversed. In reckoning silver touch the amount of alloy in the piece is mentioned whereas in reckoning gold the amount of gold in the piece is mentioned, Indian fashion.
Many standards of gold between k'ayabat and môjo (spelt properly môgh: kroo, but I have also seen moky) are, however, known to jewellers, and I give below a representation, two-thirils full size, of a set of touch needles or standards, which I procured from a bankrupt jeweller in Mandalay in 1889, showing nine standards, viz., 95%, 90%, 85%, 80%.
I have a note of this term, where it is spelt k'ayab'atkos. Stevenson, Dict., gives shwêgaung; and shwini as the post kind of gold." But these terms inerely mean "good gold," and "red gold." The Burmeze are found of red bold," but gold can only be "red" whou doyed with copper. "Red guld" cannot therefore he really the best kud of old." According to Bock, Temples and Elephants, p. 398, the Siamese recognised six gold standards as a very ancient custom. Each standard had a name, which he gives in his curious spelling. He says, on some local information apparently, that the standards date back to A.1). 1347.
i See Prinsep, Useful Tables, p. 31. 15 Prinsep's merchants' gold, which he calls kundtabe (p. 32).
16 1.c., of kajal alke gold. Informants, however, are ofton puzzling, and I have boen given in the bazaara ywemajú (hulf gold leaf) for the highest and cho-rojů as the lowest standard.
17 In 1889 Sir Frank Gates sont mo from Katha a specimen of gold which he was told we called shred chauke. Unfortunately it never rouched me, but it probably represented the standard of 60%.
15 This is probably Prinsep's king's gold," which was komd-taba-léywe, i.e., 9 mas, lpe, 4 ywa, or 9 mús (p 31). The "Rock-gold" of Achin in 1711 ran to 92, 93, 96, 99, and 100 touch. Lockyer, Trade in India, p. 731.
49 British jewellers gold, at 18 carats fine=the Burmese shi me standard, or 80%, 80 the ordinary carat gold would only be 10% or 20 % worse than mjó.
