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| Cristal inspects a silver 'flower money' coin of the type once used in northern Thailand and Burma. The monies are just two
of 2,000-plus pecuniary treasures he keeps catalogued and arranged. Tibor Krausz |
This coin collector is no penny pincher
From 'pig mouths' money to 'tiger tongues,' numismatist Ronald Cristal sheds new light on history.
from the August 29, 2007 edition
Page 3 of 3
Cristal first set foot in Thailand (now his adoptive home) in 1971 during the Vietnam War. A military judge advocate, he was handling local settlement claims filed against the US Army.
Then one day he wandered into a small shop peddling Chinese sycee (silver ingots), and, next thing he knew, he'd bought the entire collection. It was a nascent numismatist's epiphany – and he was hooked. Ever since, Cristal has been a constant presence at Bangkok auctions and flea markets, squinting at the wares of amulet merchants and old-coin sellers.
"Amazing things show up at these places," he notes with relish while navigating narrow alleys, his sizable frame carried along on swift, choppy steps, a winded reporter in full pursuit. Having gobbled down a curbside rice-dish lunch, Cristal is racing back to his coins.
• • •
Unlocking another chest of his treasures, Cristal produces flat, elongated silver objects with the pimply texture of toad skin. No, they aren't from the bag of an ancient witchdoctor. Behold: "tiger-tongue money."
At least that's what romantically inclined collectors label this ancient Laotian currency, which locals simply called lat. The technology for replicating the old coins has been lost, but folklore attributes their spotty surface to the death throes of fire ants thrown into molten silver.
Such peculiar coinages flourished locally until the mid-19th century, when the Kingdom of Siam, although a regional merchant power for centuries, finally began to use the flat coins favored by Europeans, courtesy of a man-powered screw press donated by Queen Victoria.
That's why, for people like Cristal, numismatics is more than an idle hobby. Trends and changes in primitive monetary systems, when painstakingly decoded, can chronicle the trajectories of preliterate cultures and explain the cultural underpinnings of modern societies. "For one interested in the evolution of history," he explains, "it's interesting to see coinage as [tokens in the phases of] a historical evolution."
Enamored of the country's peculiar money, Cristal took Thai citizenship a few years ago, adopting the name Ronachai Krisadaolarn in a distant echo of his original. (His new alias translates grandly as "Victorious Combatant [with] Majestic Power.") At his citizenship test, Cristal says, he whipped out the snapshot he carries in his wallet of himself with the country's revered king, Bhumibol Adulyadej, who has a keen interest in old Siamese coins; Cristal boasts that he was granted citizenship without further ado.
But the numismatist cherishes his rapport with King Bhumibol for other reasons, too. "It's been a privilege," he notes, "to meet the man whose face is on every current note and coin."
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