uest for a Manchurian Drum
Weight: 368 grams/10taels
Inscriptions: 奉天府/奉天府
Fengtien Prefecture
I acquired this piece 5 years ago, and it is still the only specimen
from the Manchurian provinces (Fengtien, Jilin and HelungJiang)
that I have
seen in the shape of a 10 tael drum, which was mainly circulated in Szechuan.
Because no other piece of this type has been found, I have been suspicious
of its identity, thinking that it might not have been cast in Manchuria.
I suspected it might be a Szechuan drum which was overstamped with
the name of "Fengtien Prefecture" before or during its circulation
in Fengtien, or it may have been a consignment from the government of Fengtien
prefecture to a Szechuan silversmith, just like another mysterious Square Trough in
Kuangtung Pattern but with an obsolete place name of Jiangsu in my collection. This suspicion was suddenly eliminated when I found a
piece of information in Joe Cribb's "A Catalogue of Sycee in the British
Museum".
On page 45 of the book, under the caption of "Provincial table of ingot
names, as recorded by Miyashita", the categories of the ingots
circulated in Manchuria includes a type called "Yuanding" in a
weight of around 10 taels. "Yuan-Ding" means "Round
Ingot" in Chinese, and in the past this term generically applied to all
sycee in a round, oval or drum shape. Accordingly, the Manchurain provinces
did circulate drum shaped sycee.
Now, my question about this piece has turned to "why have all other
Manchurian drums disappeared?"
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