File:Bunkyū Eihō Edasen - Dr. Luke Roberts 01.jpg

English: Coin Trees

Coin trees are examples of a middle stage of cash coin manufacture. After the coins have been cast in sand molds and the metal has hardened, the whole lot of them are removed from the mold in one piece. Normally, after this the coins are broken off individually and filed and treated to become circulating coins. (see manufacture) Coin trees are rare, but there are a number of reasons why they survive. I suspect that most commonly they survive because of the interest of collectors long ago. They can be lovely and have been known to be used in China as charms as well. Some may exist as a result of a mint closing down suddenly for reasons of economic, human or natural disaster. 　 The coin tree below is an example of a Japanese Bunkyuu tsuuhou of 1863. It consists of 42 coins cast on two branches. I realize now that I should have displayed these pictures upside down--which is the way that they would have been cast. The metal would have been poured into a point at the bottom of this picture. The coins are all tilted about 30 degrees to the left or right but there is one exception, a coin rotated about 85 degrees to the left. What is noticable with all coins is that a corner of the center hole points toward where the molten metal will enter. This placement probably encouraged flow better than presenting the flat side of a coin hole to where the metal came in. The central bars have a straight triangular shape suggesting that a bar was first inserted into the front side of the sand mold to make the path. The smaller paths from bar to coin are more rough and suggest that they were carved into the sand by an artisan. The paths are flat and level with the bar on the reverse side, suggesting (just as in the image on my manufacture page) that the little paths were cut after the impression of the coins were made in the sand mold, and cut on one of the two halves of the mold, in this case the front. I do not know why there is excess copperbetween the two coins in the top center, but it seems to reveal the existence of a small spacing bar or a path cut to let air escape from the bottom. Generally thistree is very successfuly cast, but note that two of the coins on the top right have holes revealing casting imperfections.

Coin trees are rare and thus are the object of faking. Whether this tree is real or fake is beyond my capacity to judge, but at worst it is a very authentic-seeming fake and a lovely object. The characters are authentic soubun style and the coins are the correct size and seemingly of the right metal mixture for a Bunkyuu Tsuuhou.