RONALD CRISTAL: THE MONEY MAN OF SIAM

 

As a general rule, buffalo droppings aren't worth all that much, but the one Ronald Cristal is holding in his hands at his Bangkok office cost the Brooklyn-born Jewish lawyer a pretty penny when he acquired it at a sprawling weekend market in the Thai capital.

Should he choose to resell it, he could do so for around 100,000 baht, or $3,000.

There is a good reason for what may seem like a rather steep price for the black, badly pockmarked object that resembles a large, chunky beer coaster with a mangled rim. Despite its name, the buffalo dropping in Cristal's hands has nothing to do with the bowel movements of water buffalo, those lumbering beasts of burden ubiquitous in parts of rural Southeast Asia.

To be sure, the 772-gram piece does bear more than a passing resemblance to meadow muffins deposited underfoot by incontinent ungulates, but it is a type of money that was in use in the 17th and 18th centuries in Luang Prabang, a quaint town in the mountains of northern Laos, which was then the capital of a small kingdom. This antique currency is made of pure copper, but what makes it valuable for Cristal, an avid numismatist, is its rarity.

You very rarely see them, says Cristal, 80, a naturalized citizen of Thailand who also goes by Ronachai Krisadaolarn, his adopted moniker that means Victorious Warrior [with] Majestic Power

If you buy one old coin a week, in 50 years you get a big collection, he observes apropos of that collection, which he continues to ex- pand any chance he gets. If there's something I don't have, I'll buy it, but these days it's very hard to find something I don't already have. Cristal is managing director of Bangkok International Associates, a firm specializing in corporate and commercial law, where his desk is cluttered with prints of antique coins shuffled among files on legal cases. One minute you'll find him scrolling through his computer with meticulously cataloged photos of peculiarly shaped tokens, ingots and coins. The next he'll dash out from a room, only to return with an item he has just retrieved from a hefty safe to show you.

 

The minute after that, he'll fetch his authoritative reference guide on indigenous Thai primitive money – titled somewhat abstrusely to the uninitiated as Siamese Coins: From Funan to the Fifth Reign – and flip open its glossy pages here or there to yet more photographs. His magnum opus follows his two earlier books, The Centenary of Thai Banknotes and The Coins and Medals of the Rattanakosin Era (the royal dynasty from 1782 to date), both of which are standard volumes of Siamese numismatics published respectively by the Bank of Thailand and the Thai Treasury Department.

These seminal works have bolstered Cristal's claim to be the world's leading expert on premodern forms of money from Siam, which even in the esoteric world of numismatics makes for an exotic field. Thailand is unique in the history of coinage because no other place on Earth has had such a diversity in coins, Cristal explains.

Cristal has another surprise in store. From his safe he retrieves a tray on which are nickel-sized objects featuring the Star of David symbol inside a dotted circle, in a design that resembles a wheel with hexagram-shaped spokes. The tokens hail from the Kingdom of Ayutthaya, north of Bangkok, whose cosmopolitan, religiously tolerant milieu appealed to the Jewish merchants who began visiting and settling there as early as the 17th century.

Were these coins made and used by the Jewish residents of the Siamese city? There was a Jewish presence in Ayutthaya and there's a whole box of these coins. Presumably the Jewish merchants made them. Beyond that, nothing much is known about them.

Howard adds:

To read the complete article (subscription required), see:
Ronald Cristal: The Jewish money man of Siam (https://www.jpost.com/jerusalem-report/article-707110)

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