PI Gaming Pieces

Pi are small porcelain tokens made in China for the gambling houses of Siam in the 19th century. They were sometimes used as small change in the neighbourhoods in which they were issued.. They come in a large variety of shapes and colours. They are mostly inscribed in Chinese, but occasionally in Siamese. Inscriptions can vary between simply the name of the gambling house to extracts from classical Chinese poetry. This catalogue illustrates, in colour, about 1800 of these tokens, with a full translation and explanation of their inscriptions and iconography.