All about ancient stuff: 200 year old coin

This coin is 200 years old! It is a coin from ancient Vietnam, sometime around 1820.

明命  Míng Mìng was the second emperor of the Nguyễn dynasty of Vietnam

通宝 Tōng Bǎo means Currency

When we were outside in our backyard, Zoe had the idea to dig in the dirt. I agreed and we dug, and dug, and dug. Then, we found something green with a square hole in it. Zoe was tired of digging, so I dug it out. We took it home and cleaned it up.

We did not know how old the coin was, until I started Chinese at school and asked my Chinese teacher. At that time, I noticed the hieroglyphs and she told me what they meant.

Now….how did it get to our backyard???!!!

Hypothesis 1: When Santa was flying over a giant tree in our backyard, his present sack got ripped by the branches and the coin fell out of there. It was part of someone’s Christmas present!

Hypothesis 2: Previous owners of our house had accidentally dropped the coin when they were cleaning their coin collection on the terrace, and they did not notice it rolled away and fell off the edge of the terrace.

Hypothesis 3: The coin was laying somewhere on the sidewalk and a bird thought it was a giant green beetle. It took it in its beak and when it realized it was not food, the bird dropped it in our backyard, where we found it.

What do you think? Please write your response in the comments!