Talk:Vietnamese cash

Capitalisation convention for "Thông Bảo"

I have deliberately to use the convention of "Đồng Tiền Thông Bảo" as opposed to "Đồng Tiền thông bảo", this has to with how these coinages are talked about in English-language sources. Generally speaking Vietnamese-language sources would use the spelling "Đồng Tiền thông bảo", "Đồng Tiền trọng bảo", "Đồng Tiền nguyên bảo", Etc. but some Vietnamese-language sources also prefer the "Đồng Tiền Thông Bảo", "Đồng Tiền Trọng Bảo", "Đồng Tiền Nguyên Bảo", Etc. spelling, meanwhile the latter spelling is universal among all the mainstream English-language sources (Barker, Daniel, Sema, Etc.). I am explaining this here in case this choice is ever questioned as I prefer to use the English-language standard for the English-language Wikipedia. --Donald Trung (talk) 08:54, 28 July 2021 (UTC)

Burying coins

Is there more info on the apparently widespread burying of coins mentioned in the lead? jonas (talk) 20:34, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

Jonas1015119, This is a Wikipedia talk page so I'll answer you on your talk page as this is off-topic. -- — Donald Trung (talk) 20:54, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

my comment was about burying coins as mention in the lead section of this article, not about buying the coins. jonas (talk) 23:50, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

Jonas1015119, my bad I must've misread it yesterday as I was traveling without my spectacles. Yes, you're right Vietnamese burial coins aren't mentioned in the body of the text. The traditional could probably be found in articles about traditional Vietnamese funerary rites. Though the source mentioned from this is Toda, later sources like the Vietnamese National Archives mentions the melting down of copper-alloy cash coins as well.

I just woke up and I should've probably read my reply before publishing it. Vietnam has a tradition of burying coins as a funerary ritual, this one is even followed by modern Vietnamese people today, for example American Military News reports: "A penny left on the top of the headstone means that the grave-site was visited. A nickel indicates that the person visiting the site trained at boot camp with the deceased veteran, while a dime means the person served with them in some capacity. A quarter left at the grave means that the person who left the coin was with the veteran when they were killed." - meaning-behind-tradition-leaving-coins-veterans-gravestones (Vietnamese-American veterans of the Vietnam War). And in Vietnam it is currently a tradition to throw away small banknotes near graves or when passing a cemetery. In fact, I remember reading about it years ago that in Vietnam there was a large demand for small denomination banknotes for this tradition while the State Bank of Vietnam refused to print more of these banknotes (though I can't seem to find the articles now). My guess is that Toda likely references this, as this funerary tradition also exists in China and Korea. Looking through Vietnamese sources we found that Emperor Trần Nghệ Tông buried a large amount of cash coins in a mountain while at war with Champa and the Ming Dynasty and that the mountain then collapsed causing to a large loss of cash coins, but that seems to be an unrelated account. -- — Donald Trung (talk) 05:05, 25 May 2023 (UTC)

The 1859 Filipino book "Idea del imperio de Annam, ó de los reinos unidos de Tunquin y Cochinchina" reports: "iguamente el dinero manual en Tunquin y Cochin�china consistía en monedillas circulares, agujereadas por el centro y llamadas Doung-Tien en el pais , á las que los Europeos conocen en China con el nombre de Chapecas. Aquellas eran mas pequeñas que estas, y solo pasaban en�tre los Anamilas. Sin embargo de su ninguna estraccion, desaparecía aquella moneda á los pocos meses de fabri�cada por el Gobierno en grandes cantidades, y entregadas á la circulación. El Emperador Minh-Manh, dicen, supo ó sospechó que muchos de sus subditos enterraban cuantas Chapecas caían en sus manos. En consecuencia, mandó reíormar esta moneda, que era antes de bronce, fabricán�dola de zinc, con mezcla de plomo y estaño" (note that "Chapecas" is the Castilian word for "cash coins"). Note that this account was only written a couple of decades after the fact, so there's a closer proximity to when this actually occurred. --Donald Trung (talk) 06:42, 25 May 2023 (UTC)