We can always rely on World Coin Appreciation, a rare Chinese producer, to offer up something a little different from the norm, and often with an Asian leaning. We were super impressed with their Sanxingdui artifact coin , which shone a light on a little known, but incredible fascinating culture in Ancient China.  This one is of a similar ilk, although it also owes much to WCA’s Tiger Tally coin, which I’ve just noticed we never got around to covering.

This Tiger-shaped Jie is one of the ancient tokens, used for military, diplomatic, customs, postal and other important bureaucratic functions. “The Tiger-shaped Jie” was unearthed in the tomb of the king of Nanyue had a gold inscription of “王命命车驲（rì）”, which was the proof of executing the king’s order. It’s made of metal, and was produced somewhere between 200 BCE and 24 CE. The five characters inscribed on the side read ‘The King’s Orders to Muster the Troops’. The original currently resides in the Museum of the Western Han Dynasty Mausoleum of the Nanyue King.

This is a two-piece coin, each of a troy ounce in weight, and sharing a common, if mirrored in orientation, obverse. They’re antique-fini8shed and finished with gilded highlights, as the original artifact was. They can be placed side-by-side to make a fully dimensional tiger jie. Each piece is 55 x 38 mm in size, and comes attractively boxed with a C.O.A. The mintage is just 199 units. These are quite hard to track down, but we know Powercoin had them. Available to order now.