Set of five “tajadero,” or Tau (T)—knife-shaped copper or br - Lot 217

Lot n° 217
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200 - 300 EUR
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Set of five “tajadero,” or Tau (T)—knife-shaped copper or br - Lot 217
Set of five “tajadero,” or Tau (T)—knife-shaped copper or bronze trading coins: One made of pure copper in a classic shape. Three others made of bronze in a classic shape, including one miniature. One very elongated and extremely thin piece called “chisel money.” Lengths: between 12 and 18 cm. Mexico. Aztec civilization. 1300–1521 AD. Each object bears a typewritten label describing it in detail. Provenance: Rigby Collection, USA Harmer Rook Galleries, September 27, 1995, lot no. 1405 Private collection, Brussels Passed down through the family “Tajadero” (Spanish for “cutting knife”), made of copper or bronze, were a form of currency used in central Mexico and parts of Central America during the reign of the Aztec Empire. This form was originally introduced around the 12th century from the cultures of Peru and Ecuador, where they are well known by the name “Tumi.” The long, slender tajadero, or Tau (T)—here referred to as “chisel money”—is believed to be part of a set of fourteen pieces of a unique shape, the other thirteen of which are held in the collections of H.D. Gibbs, Rev. Harris, and the museum in Buffalo, NY. (See the June 1967 mail-order catalog of collector/dealer H.D. Gibbs, where he offers, under “Lot 113: AZTEC. Large paper-thin COPPER CHISEL-SHAPED MONEY, 8 x 3 x 1.5 inches (20.3 x 7.6 x 3.8 cm), Rare $25 USD” at https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/book/569030). The catalog for the exhibition “The Story of Money as Told by the Knox Collection,” Buffalo Museum of Science, NY, 1936, describes without an illustration on page 70 a lot of “Chisel money, large-Copper; Aztec; Pre-Columbian; 4 pieces” (Chisel money, large copper, Aztec, Pre-Columbian, 4 pieces) An article by Robert Obojski in the August 1968 issue of the *Whitman Numismatic Journal* reports that the “Knox Collection” (of coins) at the Buffalo Museum of Science, NY, began with a donation made nearly 40 years ago by Mrs. Seymour H. Knox, in addition to her previous donations for the museum’s Great Hall of Civilizations. The coins and tokens that form the core of the collection were carefully selected by Stuart Mosher, numismatic curator at the Buffalo Museum of Science. The label mentions 14 pieces, and the Buffalo Museum holds 4 of them. That leaves 10, one of which is featured here in the sale, while the other 9 are likely divided between the Gibbs and Rev. Harris collections. The mention of one of these rare coins in 1936 suggests that the division of the 14 coins (chisels) likely took place around the second half of the 1930s. See Figures 1a & 1b in Illustration 10.3, “A Typology of Mesoamerican Axe-Money Forms.” Redrawn and modified by Kim Cullen Cobb, (from Hosler, Lechtman, and Holm 1990: fig.) in *The Craft, Use, and Distribution of Axe-Monies in Mesoamerica, by Kim Cullen Cobb, Christopher S. Beekman, Emily Kaplan, and Thomas Lam, in *Waves of Influence: Pacific Maritime Networks Connecting Mexico, Central America, and Northwestern South America*. Beekman, Christopher S. and McEwan, Colin (eds.), pp. 347–415, Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 2022. Howard D. Gibbs (1895–1970) was one of North America’s most renowned numismatic collectors and dealers; his collection was auctioned off from 1960 to 1972 by Hans M. F. Schulman in New York. The Rev. Harris’s collection remains unidentified at this time.
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