Firefly: Original Coins of the Verse

[dr_slurpee]

Phil I must damn and thank you for posting those pics...just when I thought I was close to a set of Firefly coins you add more to the mix. LOL

 

[Friendly flyer]

Hi, sorry for necro'ing the thread.

I'm trying to put together a 'verse money-bag. The larger silver coins aren't much of a problem these days, with quite good replicas sold for very reasonable prices from china. The copper coins are a bit tougher though. Some appear to be cheap "ancient" copies, the type you can buy as "feng shui" coins, but I have problems identifying the larger copper coins (those without holes).Anyone know anything about them?

 

[robstyle]

There was no rhyme or reason any particular coin was chosen when the prop dept purchased them. They were grabbed by the handful between a couple shops in LA's Chinatown.

 

[Friendly flyer]

There was no rhyme or reason any particular coin was chosen when the prop dept purchased them. They were grabbed by the handful between a couple shops in LA's Chinatown.

I think I've read as much before. The idea of using the touristy Chinese coins was inspired!

Fettclone's very through references makes identifying all the silver ones easy. My question is more on the identity of some of the others, if we look at this picture for instance:



The larger silver coins are unmistakeable "Fat man dollars" (Yuan Shih-kai dollar, minted 1914-1021).
The smaller silver coins appear to be (replica) One Tael coins (the dragon Tael, minted 1903)
The small bronze coin with a hole in the middle is a cheap knock-offs of a Qing-dynasty coin (these are dime a dozen on-line)

I haven't been able to identify the large dark bronze coins though, and neither the copper coin in the centre. The latter looks like it could be a contemporary of the larger silver coins (late Victorian/early Edwardian) but I'm hoping anyone would be able to help me ID them.

 

[robstyle]

I cant really tell which ones youre talking about but are these them?

 

[Friendly flyer]

I cant really tell which ones youre talking about but are these them?

Thanks a million, these are great! It's particularly valuable to have them side-by-side to see the size, it helps considerably with IDing them!

 

[Friendly flyer]

I cant really tell which ones youre talking about but are these them?

I've taken the liberty of organizing your pictures into a simplified coinage guide. I've made no attempts at ordering obverse/reverse or orienting them right way up, but I have all scaled them to match the Fat Man dollar.

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a37/Friendly_flyer/Coins of the verse_zpssnvx5fvj.jpg

From a bit of google-fu, the coins are (replicas of):
1 “Fat Man dollar”, silver 1 Yuan, ca 1915
2 Large feng-shui coin, 40-42 mm, so far unidentified
3 Szechuan Sichuan Province 100 cash (1/10 Yuan) copper coin, ca 1900
4 Unknown silver coin, possibly Korean
5 50 cash XinHai copper coin
6 Ca 30 mm copper coin with chrysanthemum symbol, likely Japanese

 

[Friendly flyer]

the plate and baskets are from Serenity

I have a question:

I came across bamboo bowl. It is a smidge below 140 mm (5 1/2 inch) across and about half as deep. It looks like a fair approximation to the screen used prop from Serenity that Philippes posted, though it's a tad smaller. If the replica Fat-Man dollars are correctly sized (28,9 mm), the Serenity bowl should be around 170 mm.

Here is mine (the replica coins are about 3/4rd of a Fat-Man dollar):



These kinds of bowls are usually bamboo on the inside and a lacquer on the outside. Mine's white lacquer, does anyone know what colour the Serenty ones had?

 

[robstyle]

If I recall the bamboo bowls and plates were off the shelf Ikea items. Ive got a small cache of them in a box somewhere from the set.

 

[Friendly flyer]

If I recall the bamboo bowls and plates were off the shelf Ikea items. Ive got a small cache of them in a box somewhere from the set.

LOL, the first thing I thought when I saw those bowl was IKEA! But alas, the local IKEA shop seems to be out of that particular style of bowls. I believe sanding and painting the one I've got in the correct colour should be a straight forward job. If you can find the original colour I'd be really happy!

 

[robstyle]

LOL, the first thing I thought when I saw those bowl was IKEA! But alas, the local IKEA shop seems to be out of that particular style of bowls. I believe sanding and painting the one I've got in the correct colour should be a straight forward job. If you can find the original colour I'd be really happy!

There is no color just bare bamboo but there were some with a green or yellow rim if memory serves.

 

[Friendly flyer]

There is no color just bare bamboo but there were some with a green or yellow rim if memory serves.

Thanks mate, you're a gem!

Then I suppose just sanding off the lacquer layer will do the trick. That yellow or green rim, is it on the lower outside? The edge of the bowl looks very much like it doesn't have any rim in the photo.

 

[robstyle]

the bowl youre looking at has no color, but, other bowls or plates did.

 

[Friendly flyer]

the bowl youre looking at has no color, but, other bowls or plates did.

Great, thanks!

 

[6644Invader]

For convenience I numbered the coins. I took the pictures down to my local coin shop and they were able to identify some of them for me and are working on the rest. They told me all the coins were fakes/copies of the originals. The identified coins are as follows:

1. 1912 Chinese Yuan
2. 1914 Chinese Yuan
3.
4.
5. China "50 Cash" with dragon
6. 1916 Chinese dragon Yuan
7.
8. ~1930's Chinese Yuan
9.
10.
11
12.
13. The back side is a 1908 Szechuan Yuan. The side on the numbered picture is a Chinese commemorative coin and is not real currency.
14.
15.
16
17.
18.

I will keep posting as I find out more. Hope this helps!

 

[Mike J.]

Your #3 is a French 'trade dollar' or French Inodchina piastre.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_dollar

Some of the others may be Japanese trade dollars as well.

I'd swear these have been ID'ed years ago. Ask around on FireflyProps.net. The attached "Guesses" graphic is not mine.


-MJ

 

[Treadwell]

I'd swear these have been ID'ed years ago.

Much seminal work here:
http://www.therpf.com/showthread.php?t=1338&highlight=firefly+coins

...except all the pics are broken.

 

[Friendly flyer]

Thank you Invader and Mike J.!

From my understanding of coin history, the thaler became a fairly standardized unit of money in the 17th and 18th century. The great grand dad of all those thalers were the good old Spanish 8 Reales coin (the "piece of 8" of pirate fame). With the colonial trade in Africa and Far East in the late 18th through 19th century, all nations wanting to do trade made similar large, impressive silver coins of proximately similar value. Both the Mexican 8 reales and US Morgan dollar are typical examples, the same are the Austrian Maria Theresa thaler (still being minted btw) and Victorien Crown coins.

Many were really meant only for the foreign foreign trade and were more or less small coin-shaped silver bullion, different from the domestic currency. Both the US and UK had dedicated trade dollars in addition to their domestic Morgan dollars and silver Crown coin. The French had their "Piastre de commerce" in addition to the domestic Franc and so on. Smaller countries had large silver coins that was both a trade coin and domestic currency, like the Swedish-Norwegian large two Krone.

The reason these work so well in the Firefly setting is of course the Western frontier theme of the show. Having large coins looking very much like Morgan dollars, but full of obscure symbols and Chinese characters works really well in the setting. They are called "platinums" in the show, so I suppose the metal is supposed to be platinum rather than silver. Off course, being cheap Chinese knock offs rather than the real thing, the actual metal we see on-screen is potmetal, white brass and/or copper-nickel.

 

[Friendly flyer]

On Etsy someone is selling a set of 20 "Chinese Copper Coin China Currency Cash Miao Silver" (googling the term will get you there) for a very reasonable price. The set is copies of a wide range of trade dollars, including almost all the "silver" coins from the set. My guess is the prop-maker bought such a set and took out those coins most likely to recognise as historical money (the Mexican 8 reales, the US and British trade dollars and a strange Chinese one with Sau the god of longlivity). The remaining 16 coins are from what I can tell the ones found in Firefly, including the French Piastre de commerce and the silver 1 yen.

 

[Brigandia36]

All the identified coins I can find on ebay, are very expensive because most of theim are silver coins.