S925 Silver Mountain Ghost Coin Cinnabar Pendant

Cinnabar is a mercury sulphide mineral, a deep opaque red. Ground to powder it served in antiquity as both pigment and medicine, and the red ink used for talismans is cinnabar. It contains mercury — that is a fact. Wearing it is fine; the things to avoid are ingestion and high heat. Knowing that before you buy is more use than a pile of stories. Cinnabar is soft, and in time the surface picks up fine scratches; that is the temper of the material.

This pendant is cinnabar set into silver in the form of a mountain ghost coin. Silver forms the rim and the backing plate; the cinnabar fills the face, with the characters showing through from beneath, and the red-white contrast is strong. The silver rim laps over the edge of the cinnabar, and where the work is good the join is a clean line, neither blurred nor weeping red. If the rim is pressed too thin it cannot hold the cinnabar and a knock will chip the edge, so a slightly heavier rim is the safer build.

The mountain ghost coin belongs to the Daoist talisman-coin line, and both its face text and its back pattern follow rules rather than being a few characters cut at random. It never circulated; it was cast to be worn or to avert evil. That needs saying plainly, so that nobody buys it as an antique coin. Real collecting looks at patina and at the casting gate, which is a different matter entirely from a newly made piece. On a flower coin the casting gate, the string hole and the ground of the field are the three places that tell old from new; on a new piece the field is as flat as paper.

Cinnabar can be filled in several ways — inlaid, bonded or fired — and the piece itself is the only reliable guide. Done well, the edges are neat and nothing spills past the characters; done badly, the fill lifts at the edges over time, and once it lifts the whole panel has to be replaced. Run a fingertip round the edge when buying: you can feel whether it sits level, and that is more reliable than a photograph. Before filling, the silver ground is usually roughened a little or the bond won't hold, and the roughening stays hidden under the rim.

On care: cinnabar dislikes knocks and long soaking. The silver oxidises and the cinnabar does not, so as it ages the silver darkens while the red stays red and the contrast grows. Worn against the body, don't let the cinnabar face rub on skin indefinitely; in summer sweat can carry a little of the red onto pale clothing. That is not the colour failing but powder lifted by moisture. If you only wear it now and then, keep it in a box and not in a drawer with keys — the cinnabar face marks more easily than anything else on it.