No Comparison, No Appraisal

The identification of the ancient coins of Chinese culture should be based on the physical collection of ancient coins in hand. That is to say, to seek truth from facts, we must take a same or similar cultural artefact as far as possible to make actual contrast and comparison in order to make a judgment. Whenever showing the same or similar ancient cultural artefact of the same variety, taking ancient coins as an example, it will make us more clear about how to appraise the dynasty history of a cultural artefact. Practical dialectics and materialistic view of history are the mainstream of common verification. It can also be divided into the ‘comparison method’ and ‘analogy method’ as cross reference.

Compared with the same methodAnalogy method

Dialectics

It is generally best to have various samples of real objects used as references to identify the historical period of Chinese cultural artefacts. First, eliminate any doubts inconsistent with history, geography, environment, or past culture; then, according to the use of contemporary raw materials, understand the practice of the prevailing customs of past times, the popular standard model of technological skills, and the sacle of its operation. These, thus, are synthesized to become the basis of the points of view in an argument. It is necessary to pay attention to the traces of ancient cultural artefacts left over by the years, not forgetting to examine the traces of representation in their folk circulation, so as to seek a reasonable basis for inference.

Dialectical example

View of History

The combination of ‘dialectics’ and ‘view of history’ is an innovative scheme advocated by the ‘Old Hong Kong’ cultural artefact collectors to use real objects to authenticate ancient Chinese coins. In order to have the right to speak, it is necessary to have the storage of ancient coins, which are to be adopted as the evidence of timely reference. There are three main opinions on the identification of ancient Chinese coins, to be whishfully shared with ancient Chinese coin holders, as follows:

(1) the origin of Chinese culture
(2) national historical value
(3) rare and unique samples