CHINA: AE charm (38.62g), 52mm, lian sheng gui zi (May there be the birth of one honorable son after another) // five sons around central hole, VF, ex Dagmar Kringlebotten Collection. According to the consignor, who is the great-grandson of Dagmar Kringlebotten, she was born in Norway in 1891. Her father passed away when she was 4 years old, and when she was 9, her mother was remarried to a man named Lars Sørensen Hasle, who had already built a career in China. Dagmar followed her parents to China and landed in Woosung (Wusong) on November 16, 1900 after a 7-week journey on the SS Kiautschou. From there, they took a train to nearby Shanghai. In her memoir "En verdensborger ser tilbake" (1979), Dagmar recounts that as her family arrived in Shanghai, the city was still in the midst of the Boxer Rebellion. Its streets were flooded with antiques that soldiers had looted from official residences and later sold to small shops. They eventually settled into a comfortable life at No. 2, Kung Ping Road (near todays Gong Ping Road Ferry on the Huangpu River), in an ornately decorated home with several Chinese servants. It is unknown how Dagmar began collecting Chinese coins, but her interest might have been sparked by her familys acquaintance with another Norwegian ex-patriot, Johan Munthe (1864-1935), who was a high-ranking customs official in the employment of the Chinese government and an avid collector of Chinese art. In 1908, Dagmar returned to Norway via the Trans-Siberian Railway and brought home the collection that she eventually passed on to her descendants.
