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MAY, 1928)
CURRENCY AND COINAGE AMONG THE BURMESE
91
Illustrations : (a) cowries are not coin: (b) lumps of unstamped copper, though used as metal tokens, are not coin : (c) medals are not coin, inasmuch as they are not intended to be used as money: (d) the coin denominated as the Company's rupee is the Queen's coin." All this is to say: coin stamped and issued by the authority of the ruler of a country is coin of the realm he rules. Coin stamped and issued by the authority of other rulers is coin; all other metal used as inoney is a metal token.
These definitions apply to completely civilized states, and practically, though not altogether, to such countries as Upper Burma was before the annexation; and I here describe the two species of currency now to be discussed respectively as "tokens " and "coin," though both are strictly speaking tokens.
E.-I. Tokens. In this category must be reckoned silver, copper and other discs made in the royal mint bat never stamped. Either through carelessness or theft these discs got into circulation in large quantities, and owing to the habit, common in the East, and described ante, vol. XXVI, pp. 157 ff., of receiving any kind of token as currency, and also because of the knowledge that they were made at the royal mint, they were freely used as tokens of the full value of coin of the realm.60 A specimen is shown in fig. 39, Plate II.
E.-II. Taung banni Coins. As unquestioned coins that were acknowledged not to be coin of the realm, but still had a ready currency at about 75 per cent. of the royal mint currency, were the laungbanni coins, They were in silver, copper and brass, and copied all the issues from the royal mint. I was never able to account satisfactorily for the minting of the taungbanní currency. Everyone in Mandalay of any importance, or likely to know really, always for some reason denied all knowledge of its origin. I suspect that private persona, either for a consideration or with the connivance of the Mint-master, obtained a right to issue coins, or that downright illicit coining was common. Some Burmans called the taungbànní currency p'ônji or monk's money, and asserted that certain nionasteries coined as of right. Among the monks who had the right to coin I understood were the Nan-ll Sayadò of the Môzaung Kyaungdaik (Monastery) near the Engdova Pagoda at Mandalay, and a Sayidò whose title I have forgotten, but who had been tutor to King Thibd.60 Others said that the taungbànni coins were issued by great personages.
A silver taungbanni piece of one mi is shown in fig. 40, Plate II. It bears the legend on the true 1 mů piece and the date 1214=1852 A.D. Similarly the copper specimen shown on fig. 41, Plate II is a copy or the tô: copper coin, and bears date 1240=A.D. 1878. The brass taungbanni coinage was common. All the specimens I saw were copies of the to: copper coins, and all bore the date 1240.
E-III. Irregular Tokens. The next point for enquiry is the token whose appearance and apparent weight gives it an exchange value without further test. These I have already called irregular tokens, 61 and defined as lumps of metal made into certain forms and used as coins though never intend ed for that purpose. Crawfurd referred to something of the kind when he says that the king's treasure was in bars of gold reckoned at 238 Spanish dollars each.
E.-III (a). Shan Shell-Money. First in this category comes tho chilon (k'ayalón, round shell) or chaubinbauk, the well. known Shan Shell-money. See Plate II, fig. 16. Sir George Scott, writing to me in 1889, called the “shells ” Siamese money, “still current among the Siamese and a large portion of the Lao [Shan) States." Ma Kin, a well-known female dealer in Mandalay, told
50 So probably also were Phayro's Plate III, figs. 5 to 10; nee p. 38. Compare the Greek temple coinage. Poole, Coins and Medals, p. 12. Also the Roman moneta castrenses, and the coins inged extra muros: op. cil., pp. 56 ff.
51 See ante, vol. XXVI, pp. 156, 157-ff,
