Year of the Monkey

It was my son's 18th birthday recently and we wanted to get him something commemorative and memorable for this 'landmark' birthday. We thought of all the usual presents (engraved Tankard, watch etc) but none of them seemed very inspiring or original. Then his mother came up with a great idea, since he is very interested in Far Eastern culture and history we decided to buy him a couple of Chinese coins from the year of his birth, 1992, which was the year of the monkey. A little bidding on eBay resulted in the above two coins which now sit in his display cabinet in his bedroom.

There are only two coins here it's just that I've shown the front and back of each coin. The small one came first, the other got delayed in Beijing airport.

Discovered another thing this evening whilst taking these....it's extremely difficult to take these types of shots without fingerprints, dust and reflections getting in the way!