Coins and Banknotes of Vietnam
and French Indochina

How to read the Thái Bình Hưng Bảo coins
大平興寶

Phạm Quốc Quân, Vietnam Numismatics #1 (10-2017), p.3-4

Vietnam Thai Binh Hung Bao coin
Thái Bình Hưng Bảo, character Đinh on the top(*)

Most books published about ancient Vietnamese coins, both in Vietnam and abroad, mention the "Thái Bình hưng bảo [太平興寶]" coin. These coins were produced during the reign of Đinh Tiên Hoàng. There are two types of "Thái Bình Hưng Bảo":
- "Thái Bình Hưng Bảo" with the character "Đinh [丁]" on the reverse. There are four types of the character "Đinh" in different positions and styles.
- "Thái Bình Hưng Bảo" with a plain reverse. Characters "Thái Bình Hưng Bảo" are written diagonally in clerical or regular script style.

Vietnam Thai Binh Hung Bao coin
Thái Bình Hưng Bảo, plain reverse(*)
Vietnam Thai Binh Hung Bao coin
Thái Bình Hưng Bảo, character Đinh on the bottom(*)
Vietnam Thai Binh Hung Bao coin
Thái Bình Hưng Bảo, casting error: characters Hưng Bảo flipped, reverse rotated by 90°(*)
Vietnam Thai Binh Hung Bao coin
Thái Bình Hưng Bảo, casting error: character Đinh mirrored(*)

Thus, Đinh dynasty coins really exist, although they are relatively simple and scarce.

In this article, I would like to discuss the character "Thai [太]". I have examined hundreds of "Thái Bình Hưng Bảo" coins, but there is not a single piece of evidence showing that it is actually "Thái [太]" rather than "Đại [大]". Perhaps historians, followed by numismatic researchers, relied on records in historical chronicles to identify this coin as "Thái Bình": after suppressing the rebellion of the Twelve Warlords, Đinh Bộ Lĩnh established the state of Đại Cồ Việt, proclaimed himself emperor under the name of Đại Thắng Minh Hoàng Đế, and four years later, in the first month of the year Canh Ngọ [庚午] (970), adopted the reign title Thái Bình [太平]. Coincidentally, even the earliest records of Đinh dynasty coins, by Hong Zun [洪遵] of the Southern Song dynasty (China) in the book Quan Zhi [泉志] (Numismatic Record), also affirm the existence of a "Thái Bình Hưng Bảo" coin, with rather detailed descriptions. So what coin is this?

In my view, there are the following grounds to suggest that there was no "Thái Bình Hưng Bảo" coin, but only a "Đại Bình Hưng Bảo" coin:

- The shape of the character does not allow the character "Đại [大]" to be read as "Thái [太]". Many people argue that the coin's strokes were engraved in the mold, but were somehow lost or worn off during the casting process. However, out of the hundreds of coins I have examined, shouldn't at least one example show a complete "Thai" character without missing strokes? In fact, Vietnamese coins such as "Thái An Thông Bảo [太安通寶]" and "Thái Hòa Phong Bảo [太和豐寶]" also exist, and the character Thái [太] clearly retains its dot stroke[1]. Therefore, casting techniques cannot explain this phenomenon. There is also an opinion that the character "Thái" was a taboo name (húy), and therefore had to be avoided. However, in my view this explanation is also not convincing, because there was no system of taboo regulations as strict as in China, where even during the reign of Emperor Taizong [太宗] of the Northern Song (976-983), the era name was "Taiping Xingguo [太平興國]", and the "Taiping Tongbao [太平通寶]" coins were cast[2].

- In the history of ancient Vietnamese coins, the character "Đại" appears quite frequently. Examples include "Đại Định Thông Bảo [大定通寶]" (Lý Dynasty); "Đại Trị Thông Bảo [大治通寶]", "Đại Trị Nguyên Bảo [大治元寶]", and "Đại Định Thông Bảo [大定通寶]" (Trần Dynasty); "Đại Bảo Thông Bảo [大寶通寶]", "Đại Hòa Thông Bảo [大和通寶]" (Early Lê Dynasty); "Đại Chính Thông Bảo [大正通寶]" (Mạc Dynasty); "Cảnh Hưng Đại Bảo [景興大寶]" (Lê Cảnh Hưng reign), and so on... All the characters "Đại" on the above coins are very clear, despite variations in calligraphy. So why couldn't there be a "Đại Bình hưng bảo"?

- The character "Đại" during the Đinh Dynasty is not only found on coins. Bricks excavated in Hoa Lư (Ninh Bình) as well as those from the 10th-century cultural layer at Thăng Long (Hanoi), with the inscription "Đại Việt Quốc Quân Thành Chuyên [大越國軍城塼]" (Great Viet Nation Military Citadel Bricks), suggest an interesting connection between the two "Đại" characters.

The brick from the citadel at Hoa Lư, Ninh Bình, Vietnam
The brick from Hoa Lư, Ninh Bình has the inscription "Đại Việt Quốc Quân Thành Chuyên"

- Speaking of the character "Đại" on the "Thái Bình Hưng Bảo" coins, I'm not the first one to bring it up. Bernard J. Permar had also read this coin as "Đại Bình Hưng Bảo" as early as 1963[4], but it seems that not many people paid attention to this opinion in ancient coin research. I would like to express my agreement with him, and I also hope that researchers will read the characters on the coin as they are actually written - something we cannot interpret otherwise.

(*) Coins from the collection of Mai Ngọc Phát, Hanoi.

[1] art-hanoi.com: This is most likely a typo.
We could not identify any Vietnamese coins with legends resembling 太安通寶 or 太和豐寶. We tried to contact the author for clarification, but he refused to comment. Some bad mouths interpret this in the spirit of a conspiracy theory.

[2] Đỗ Văn Ninh, 1992. Tiền cổ Việt Nam. NXB KHXH, Hanoi. p. 36.
https://books.google.com/books?id=5oFztAEACAAJ

[3] Mistakenly referenced as "Thái Hòa Thông Bảo [太和通寶]".

[4] Bernard J. Premar, 1963. Catalogue of Annam Coins, 968-1955. Khai-Tri, Saigon.
https://books.google.com/books/?id=5VygswEACAAJ