I am pretty sure that many of our youngling members will have no idea what I’m about to go babbling on about :lol, so I think some contextual information about this prop for appreciation is in order.
For the more seasoned members, take the introduction as a brief refresher of a captivating story-line
Over a period of a couple of years, I go through a rotation of all the sci-fi series I have on DVD, ie. all the Treks, B5, BSG, Stargates, and others.
In between those, I re-watch other series, which include 1980’s televised novels which I consider classics, such as Shaka Zulu, The Thorn Birds , Roots, Cain & Abel, etc.
Amongst the latter are the series based on the novels by James Clavell : Shogun (1980 - Richard Chamberlain , John Rhys-Davies), Tai-Pan (movie 1986 - Bryn Brown) & Nobel House (1988 - Pierce Brosnan, Denholm Elliott, John Rhys-Davies), which are part of Clavell’s books known as the ‘Asian Saga’.
I watched Noble House for the first time some 25 years ago, and have been utterly fascinated by this prop ever since.
Seeing it physically represented on screen after having read the book was one of those my heart skipped a beat moments.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
INTRODUCTION
Apart from Shogun and another of his novels (King Rat), James Clavell’s ‘Asian Saga’ books follow the dealings of the great trading company Struan's, the Noble House of Asia, its founder Dirk Struan (the first Tai-Pan, or leader of the Noble House) and his various descendants. In Cantonese, Tai-Pan literally means ‘top class or ‘big shot’. Tai-Pans were foreign-born businessmen who headed large Hong Kong trading houses. The first recorded use of the term in English is in the Canton Register of 28 October 1834.
The Struan family begins its journey in the movie “Tai Pan”, with the story of Dirk Struan, a trader of opium and other goods between China and England. Dirk Struan is the founder of the Noble House and plays a major role in establishing Hong Kong.
Although the book Nobel House takes place in 1963 Hong Kong, the TV series sets the events in the 1980’s, with Pierce Brosnan playing the part of Ian Struan Dunross, who takes over as Tai-Pan from Alastair Struan ( Denholm Elliott). Both are descendants of Dirk Stuan, and the hand-over takes place at a time of financial crisis within the Noble House.
Like the book, the series “Noble House” is magnificent, full of drama, buzzing with shady financial dealings, culture, criminal plots, espionage, natural and unnatural disasters, murder, mysteries and sub-plots.
A vital element in the plot of Noble House refers to the half-coins of Jin-Qua, whose basic history from the novel and the series, is as follows :
In 1841, when Struan's was on the brink of collapse, Dirk Struan received a loan of silver from the merchant Jin-Qua in exchange for a series of favours. Part of the arrangement consisted of four bronze coins, split in half. Four halves were given to Dirk Struan, and the other four halves were kept by Jin-Qua. Anyone who brought a half coin to the Tai-Pan of the Noble House would be granted whatever he asked, whether legal or illegal. All future Tai-Pans must swear to keep this bargain, if they were to become Tai-Pan. This served as repayment for the loan of silver.
Of the four coins, one was kept by Jin-Qua and passed down through his family. One was given to the warlord Wu Fang Choi. The third was given to Gordon Chen, the house of Chen being the Tai-Pan’s comprador (local Manager) by tradition, and passed down through his family. Gordon Chen was in fact Dirk Struan’s son with his Chinese mistress May-May, who in turn was Jin-Qua’s daughter. The fourth and last one was given out in secret.
The first coin was brought to Dirk Struan in 1841 by the warlord Wu Fang Choi.
The second coin was brought in 1894 by Chiang Wu-Tah. He asked that the Noble House give aid and sanctuary to Sun Yat-Sen and to assist him to overthrow the Manchu dynasty. This is as recounted in the Noble House novel. In the TV series, however, the second coin is shown to have been returned to “Hag” Struan in 1911 (The story of Tess “Hag” Struan is gone into detail in the novel and movie Tai-Pan).
The third coin is a major plot line in Noble House. The coin is owned by Struan's trusted advisor, Phillip Chen, handed down to him from his grandfather Gordon Chen. His son, John Chen, learns the secret of the coin, steals it, and bargains its secret away to American businessman Lincoln Bartlett. Before Bartlett takes possession of the coin, to use as a bargaining chip in his plans to become heavily involved in the Nobel House, John Chen is kidnapped and murdered.
When his father, Phillip Chen, enlists his underworld cousin Four Finger Wu to help locate John, Wu discovers the coin in the possession of one of the kidnappers, and takes it for his own, knowing its secret. When Wu dies, his son takes over the coin and asks for the favour from Ian Dunross (Brosnan).
The fate of the fourth coin is not addressed in the saga. However, it is speculated in Noble House that it was given to May-May (Dirk Struan's mistress) and passed down to her descendant Sir Shih-Teh T'Chung (Jin-Qua’s grand-daughter).
The story is way more complex, but the above suffices for the purpose of putting this prop into context.
(Due credit also to wiki)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
THE PROP
OK, now that we’re all in synch :lol, here we go with the portrayal of this prop on screen.
The series Noble House immediately starts off with Alastair Struan (Elliot) handing over the title of Tai Pan to Ian Struan Dunross (Brosnan).
Before it becomes ‘official’, and in accordance to the conditions as set down by the first Tai Pan, Ian Dunross has to sign and accept the ancient pact relating to the 4 half-coins of Jin-Qua.
The pact and coins are housed in a copy of the bible with secret ‘compartments’, which Alistair Struan tells Ian Dunross to open and sign.
The original pact written by Dirk Struan reads “I swear by the Lord God that whosoever has the other half of any of these coins, I shall grant him whatsoever he asks. Dirk Struan. June 10, 1841”. There follow the signatures of all the subsequent Tai Pans to date.
The top two compartments house the already redeemed coins.
And the ones at the bottom, those not.
Ian Dunross signing to the pact to become Tai Pan.
John Chen steals the family coin from its hiding place under a rock at the bottom of a pond in the garden.
It then gets into the hands of Four Finger Wu, who takes it from John Chen’s kidnappers.
Four Finger Wu presents a wax mould of it to Ian Dunross to prove that he has it. Ian Dunross is skeptical, because another half coin was already ‘redeemed’ by Four Finger Wu’s ancestor, the warlord Wu Fang Choi, so why would the family have 2 half coins ? However, the coin, of course ‘fits’, so Ian Dunross is obliged to grant the favour – usage of the Noble House ships to smuggle opium.
Shortly thereafter, and before Four Finger Wu can present the actual coin to Ian Dunross, Four Finger Wu dies in the collapse of an apartment block during a land-slide. After Four Finger Wu’s death, his son, Paul Choy, presents the half coin to Ian Dunross, the favour being, amongst others, his appointment as Managing Director of the Noble House for life.
THE BUILD
The first step was to reproduce the double page in the bible with the secret compartments.
I did not want this stage to consist of me actually writing out the text, for two reasons. One, my hand-writing is terrible :lol, and secondly, it is virtually impossible to get screen accuracy.
Therefore, I took these screencaps that contained all the parts needed to form the whole double page ….
…. and photoshopped them with perspective, twist, rotate etc etc etc.
Cleaned them up, and ended up with 9 layers (left).
I merged all the layers and photoshopped them all to size. Below (right) is during the clean-up process.
Once finished, it was of course printed.
Next came the book / bible.
I rummaged in all storage boxes in the garage, and on the internet, to look for a book that was the correct size. It had to be exact, practically down to the millimeter. No luck.
Ergo, I had to explore a new ‘talent’ …. bookmaking :lol !
Having looked into it, it was all way too complicated, especially to create the spine and then the threading of pages etc.
So I took an “It will do” shortcut. This was not going to be a book to be handled frequently like a real one anyway.
Found me an old book in the garage and gutted it.
(For the curious, no, the book I used wasn’t going to buy me a Ferrari if I sold it :lol )
The horizontal size was perfect, but the vertical a tad too high.
I cut the vertical length down to the correct size, and sanded the central spine.
Next I cut up lots of sheets of blank paper and folded them in half till I got the thickness I needed.
The pages were then clamped down, and a generous amount of white glue put on the ‘spine’ part so that it would be absorbed down into the papers.
Once semi-dry, the pages were glued to the book’s spine and clamped down and weighted.
Once that was again semi-dry, I opened the book, placed a round rod at the bottom of the outer spine, shaped the pages of the inner spine to the ‘book open’ position, and weighted it down.
I then weighted the book down several times in the space of a few hours, in both the open and closed positions.
End result was the glue dried in a flexible way that allowed the spine to remain in both the open and closed positions, with the sheets of paper firmly in place in both positions.
Then I placed a plastic bag over the front book cover.
And another one over the back cover, together with half of the pages.
These loose pages would become the outer ‘walls’ of the secret part of the book.
I weighted the book in the closed position, and applied white glue to the exposed remaining pages.
Again, when semi-dry, I clamped the glued pages, and let it continue drying in the ‘open’ position.
A few iterations of that process, and the book could then be open and shut without a problem.
The result thus far.
Next came the coins.
I researched the coins and discovered that the coin used is one from the Qing Dynasty. There were 5 Emperors, considered to be auspicious. The coin itself was used during the time of one of these Emperors, Chien-Lung, who ruled between 1736-1796.
Luckily, the ‘auspicious’ Emperor coins are just that, so luck would have it that replicas are still sold today as Feng Shui items.
Here is the coin in question ….. affectionately dubbed by me during my search as the “Waffle Zee Pee” …… because it was those elements of the coin that I kept repeating to myself while browsing the hundreds of different listings while looking for the right one :lol
I got me a handful of these.
First step was to mark one coin with the ‘break’ outline.
A straight cut was then made to coin slightly to the right of the lines, and the ‘breaks’ then filed down.
Once done, that half coin was placed on top of another whole coin, and the ‘negative breaks’ traced on to the second coin.
Here is a photoshopped image of the above 2 pics to better illustrate.
The second coin was then given a straight cut to the left of the lines and also filed down.
With lots of tweaking, the two coins were matched bit by bit, with close attention to the breaks as well as to match up the writing, so at the end, they look like one broken coin.
I made 3 and a half of those. 2 being the already redeemed coins, one that was redeemed in the Noble House, and the fourth one left as unknown like in both the book and the series.
The coins were of course looking too new, so I weathered them using copper, and later with bronze, dark bronze and black colours.
Finally ending up with these (compared to the original colour).
The third coin was, as seen in the screencaps above, worn as a pendant. It therefore had a hole in it.
So this was the last step for the coins.
I then continued working on the book.
Next up was marking out the secret compartments and cutting out the spaces.
Once down to level, I spread white glue on the inner edges of the cuts, to harden the compartment ‘walls’.
Next, a piece of black pleather to cover the book with.
Front, side and back glued firmly on, with a generous amount of glue, due to the pleather’s felt back.
Then weighted down, and also placing a round rod at the edge so that the cover would take on the proper book contour.
Once dry, the spine cover part was made to cover up the old spine.
And neatly tucked in.
Once the cover was ready, the secret pages part was glued to the cover, and the first page of the loose pages was glued to the other cover.
Although not all that important really, as I intend to display the book open, I took the words ‘Holy Bible’ off a screencap, straightened it out yada yada yada, and printed it on very thin paper. I cut around the ‘gold’ colour, and then stuck them firmly down on the front cover so they would take the shape of the cracks in the pleather.
I then took one of the round sheets I had previously cut out, and melted some crimson seal wax on it.
I placed a whole coin on the warm wax, to shape and prevent them from moving around. The whole coin was of course replaced by the 2 half coins.
Lots of experimenting till I got it right :wacko
So as not to damage it during any of the build process, the very last step was to insert the double sheet with the ‘pact’, signatures and ‘redemption notes’. The compartment side was glued on, and the pact side left loose like the rest of the pages.
Finally, here it is all finished.
Displayed here
Hope you enjoyed the write-up and build
For the more seasoned members, take the introduction as a brief refresher of a captivating story-line
Over a period of a couple of years, I go through a rotation of all the sci-fi series I have on DVD, ie. all the Treks, B5, BSG, Stargates, and others.
In between those, I re-watch other series, which include 1980’s televised novels which I consider classics, such as Shaka Zulu, The Thorn Birds , Roots, Cain & Abel, etc.
Amongst the latter are the series based on the novels by James Clavell : Shogun (1980 - Richard Chamberlain , John Rhys-Davies), Tai-Pan (movie 1986 - Bryn Brown) & Nobel House (1988 - Pierce Brosnan, Denholm Elliott, John Rhys-Davies), which are part of Clavell’s books known as the ‘Asian Saga’.
I watched Noble House for the first time some 25 years ago, and have been utterly fascinated by this prop ever since.
Seeing it physically represented on screen after having read the book was one of those my heart skipped a beat moments.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
INTRODUCTION
Apart from Shogun and another of his novels (King Rat), James Clavell’s ‘Asian Saga’ books follow the dealings of the great trading company Struan's, the Noble House of Asia, its founder Dirk Struan (the first Tai-Pan, or leader of the Noble House) and his various descendants. In Cantonese, Tai-Pan literally means ‘top class or ‘big shot’. Tai-Pans were foreign-born businessmen who headed large Hong Kong trading houses. The first recorded use of the term in English is in the Canton Register of 28 October 1834.
The Struan family begins its journey in the movie “Tai Pan”, with the story of Dirk Struan, a trader of opium and other goods between China and England. Dirk Struan is the founder of the Noble House and plays a major role in establishing Hong Kong.
Although the book Nobel House takes place in 1963 Hong Kong, the TV series sets the events in the 1980’s, with Pierce Brosnan playing the part of Ian Struan Dunross, who takes over as Tai-Pan from Alastair Struan ( Denholm Elliott). Both are descendants of Dirk Stuan, and the hand-over takes place at a time of financial crisis within the Noble House.
Like the book, the series “Noble House” is magnificent, full of drama, buzzing with shady financial dealings, culture, criminal plots, espionage, natural and unnatural disasters, murder, mysteries and sub-plots.
A vital element in the plot of Noble House refers to the half-coins of Jin-Qua, whose basic history from the novel and the series, is as follows :
In 1841, when Struan's was on the brink of collapse, Dirk Struan received a loan of silver from the merchant Jin-Qua in exchange for a series of favours. Part of the arrangement consisted of four bronze coins, split in half. Four halves were given to Dirk Struan, and the other four halves were kept by Jin-Qua. Anyone who brought a half coin to the Tai-Pan of the Noble House would be granted whatever he asked, whether legal or illegal. All future Tai-Pans must swear to keep this bargain, if they were to become Tai-Pan. This served as repayment for the loan of silver.
Of the four coins, one was kept by Jin-Qua and passed down through his family. One was given to the warlord Wu Fang Choi. The third was given to Gordon Chen, the house of Chen being the Tai-Pan’s comprador (local Manager) by tradition, and passed down through his family. Gordon Chen was in fact Dirk Struan’s son with his Chinese mistress May-May, who in turn was Jin-Qua’s daughter. The fourth and last one was given out in secret.
The first coin was brought to Dirk Struan in 1841 by the warlord Wu Fang Choi.
The second coin was brought in 1894 by Chiang Wu-Tah. He asked that the Noble House give aid and sanctuary to Sun Yat-Sen and to assist him to overthrow the Manchu dynasty. This is as recounted in the Noble House novel. In the TV series, however, the second coin is shown to have been returned to “Hag” Struan in 1911 (The story of Tess “Hag” Struan is gone into detail in the novel and movie Tai-Pan).
The third coin is a major plot line in Noble House. The coin is owned by Struan's trusted advisor, Phillip Chen, handed down to him from his grandfather Gordon Chen. His son, John Chen, learns the secret of the coin, steals it, and bargains its secret away to American businessman Lincoln Bartlett. Before Bartlett takes possession of the coin, to use as a bargaining chip in his plans to become heavily involved in the Nobel House, John Chen is kidnapped and murdered.
When his father, Phillip Chen, enlists his underworld cousin Four Finger Wu to help locate John, Wu discovers the coin in the possession of one of the kidnappers, and takes it for his own, knowing its secret. When Wu dies, his son takes over the coin and asks for the favour from Ian Dunross (Brosnan).
The fate of the fourth coin is not addressed in the saga. However, it is speculated in Noble House that it was given to May-May (Dirk Struan's mistress) and passed down to her descendant Sir Shih-Teh T'Chung (Jin-Qua’s grand-daughter).
The story is way more complex, but the above suffices for the purpose of putting this prop into context
.(Due credit also to wiki)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
THE PROP
OK, now that we’re all in synch :lol, here we go with the portrayal of this prop on screen.
The series Noble House immediately starts off with Alastair Struan (Elliot) handing over the title of Tai Pan to Ian Struan Dunross (Brosnan).
Before it becomes ‘official’, and in accordance to the conditions as set down by the first Tai Pan, Ian Dunross has to sign and accept the ancient pact relating to the 4 half-coins of Jin-Qua.
The pact and coins are housed in a copy of the bible with secret ‘compartments’, which Alistair Struan tells Ian Dunross to open and sign.
The original pact written by Dirk Struan reads “I swear by the Lord God that whosoever has the other half of any of these coins, I shall grant him whatsoever he asks. Dirk Struan. June 10, 1841”. There follow the signatures of all the subsequent Tai Pans to date.
The top two compartments house the already redeemed coins.
And the ones at the bottom, those not.
Ian Dunross signing to the pact to become Tai Pan.
John Chen steals the family coin from its hiding place under a rock at the bottom of a pond in the garden.
It then gets into the hands of Four Finger Wu, who takes it from John Chen’s kidnappers.
Four Finger Wu presents a wax mould of it to Ian Dunross to prove that he has it. Ian Dunross is skeptical, because another half coin was already ‘redeemed’ by Four Finger Wu’s ancestor, the warlord Wu Fang Choi, so why would the family have 2 half coins ? However, the coin, of course ‘fits’, so Ian Dunross is obliged to grant the favour – usage of the Noble House ships to smuggle opium.
Shortly thereafter, and before Four Finger Wu can present the actual coin to Ian Dunross, Four Finger Wu dies in the collapse of an apartment block during a land-slide. After Four Finger Wu’s death, his son, Paul Choy, presents the half coin to Ian Dunross, the favour being, amongst others, his appointment as Managing Director of the Noble House for life.
THE BUILD
The first step was to reproduce the double page in the bible with the secret compartments.
I did not want this stage to consist of me actually writing out the text, for two reasons. One, my hand-writing is terrible :lol, and secondly, it is virtually impossible to get screen accuracy.
Therefore, I took these screencaps that contained all the parts needed to form the whole double page ….
…. and photoshopped them with perspective, twist, rotate etc etc etc.
Cleaned them up, and ended up with 9 layers (left).
I merged all the layers and photoshopped them all to size. Below (right) is during the clean-up process.
Once finished, it was of course printed.
Next came the book / bible.
I rummaged in all storage boxes in the garage, and on the internet, to look for a book that was the correct size. It had to be exact, practically down to the millimeter. No luck.
Ergo, I had to explore a new ‘talent’ …. bookmaking :lol !
Having looked into it, it was all way too complicated, especially to create the spine and then the threading of pages etc.
So I took an “It will do” shortcut. This was not going to be a book to be handled frequently like a real one anyway.
Found me an old book in the garage and gutted it.
(For the curious, no, the book I used wasn’t going to buy me a Ferrari if I sold it :lol )
The horizontal size was perfect, but the vertical a tad too high.
I cut the vertical length down to the correct size, and sanded the central spine.
Next I cut up lots of sheets of blank paper and folded them in half till I got the thickness I needed.
The pages were then clamped down, and a generous amount of white glue put on the ‘spine’ part so that it would be absorbed down into the papers.
Once semi-dry, the pages were glued to the book’s spine and clamped down and weighted.
Once that was again semi-dry, I opened the book, placed a round rod at the bottom of the outer spine, shaped the pages of the inner spine to the ‘book open’ position, and weighted it down.
I then weighted the book down several times in the space of a few hours, in both the open and closed positions.
End result was the glue dried in a flexible way that allowed the spine to remain in both the open and closed positions, with the sheets of paper firmly in place in both positions.
Then I placed a plastic bag over the front book cover.
And another one over the back cover, together with half of the pages.
These loose pages would become the outer ‘walls’ of the secret part of the book.
I weighted the book in the closed position, and applied white glue to the exposed remaining pages.
Again, when semi-dry, I clamped the glued pages, and let it continue drying in the ‘open’ position.
A few iterations of that process, and the book could then be open and shut without a problem.
The result thus far.
Next came the coins.
I researched the coins and discovered that the coin used is one from the Qing Dynasty. There were 5 Emperors, considered to be auspicious. The coin itself was used during the time of one of these Emperors, Chien-Lung, who ruled between 1736-1796.
Luckily, the ‘auspicious’ Emperor coins are just that, so luck would have it that replicas are still sold today as Feng Shui items.
Here is the coin in question ….. affectionately dubbed by me during my search as the “Waffle Zee Pee” …… because it was those elements of the coin that I kept repeating to myself while browsing the hundreds of different listings while looking for the right one :lol
I got me a handful of these.
First step was to mark one coin with the ‘break’ outline.
A straight cut was then made to coin slightly to the right of the lines, and the ‘breaks’ then filed down.
Once done, that half coin was placed on top of another whole coin, and the ‘negative breaks’ traced on to the second coin.
Here is a photoshopped image of the above 2 pics to better illustrate.
The second coin was then given a straight cut to the left of the lines and also filed down.
With lots of tweaking, the two coins were matched bit by bit, with close attention to the breaks as well as to match up the writing, so at the end, they look like one broken coin.
I made 3 and a half of those. 2 being the already redeemed coins, one that was redeemed in the Noble House, and the fourth one left as unknown like in both the book and the series.
The coins were of course looking too new, so I weathered them using copper, and later with bronze, dark bronze and black colours.
Finally ending up with these (compared to the original colour).
The third coin was, as seen in the screencaps above, worn as a pendant. It therefore had a hole in it.
So this was the last step for the coins.
I then continued working on the book.
Next up was marking out the secret compartments and cutting out the spaces.
Once down to level, I spread white glue on the inner edges of the cuts, to harden the compartment ‘walls’.
Next, a piece of black pleather to cover the book with.
Front, side and back glued firmly on, with a generous amount of glue, due to the pleather’s felt back.
Then weighted down, and also placing a round rod at the edge so that the cover would take on the proper book contour.
Once dry, the spine cover part was made to cover up the old spine.
And neatly tucked in.
Once the cover was ready, the secret pages part was glued to the cover, and the first page of the loose pages was glued to the other cover.
Although not all that important really, as I intend to display the book open, I took the words ‘Holy Bible’ off a screencap, straightened it out yada yada yada, and printed it on very thin paper. I cut around the ‘gold’ colour, and then stuck them firmly down on the front cover so they would take the shape of the cracks in the pleather.
I then took one of the round sheets I had previously cut out, and melted some crimson seal wax on it.
I placed a whole coin on the warm wax, to shape and prevent them from moving around. The whole coin was of course replaced by the 2 half coins.
Lots of experimenting till I got it right :wacko
So as not to damage it during any of the build process, the very last step was to insert the double sheet with the ‘pact’, signatures and ‘redemption notes’. The compartment side was glued on, and the pact side left loose like the rest of the pages.
Finally, here it is all finished.
Displayed here
Hope you enjoyed the write-up and build
Last edited:
