Luo Bozhao

In this Chinese name, the family name is Luo.

Luo Bozhao (Chinese: 羅ら伯はく昭あきら; Wade–Giles: Lo Po-chao; 1899–1976) was a Chinese numismatist. He was also known as Wenjiong (文ぶん炯), Muyuan (沐園) and P. C. Low.

Life

Luo was born in Chongqing, Sichuan Province. After graduating from St. John's University, Shanghai, he engaged in business, exporting tung oil from Sichuan to the United States, the profits of which enabled him to fund his passion for collecting and researching coins. After the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, Luo served as a people's representative of the Shanghai Municipality (1950-1966) and Deputy Director of the Huangpu District (1961-1966).

He was persecuted during the Cultural Revolution, forced to sweep the streets.

Numismatic career

In 1940 Luo was one of co-founders of the China Numismatic Society (Zhongguo Quanbi Xueshe 中国ちゅうごく泉いずみ币学社しゃ) in Shanghai. He was Vice-President of the Society, and authored 100 articles in the 32 issues of the society's journal. He wrote many more articles, but lost a lot of his work in the Cultural Revolution. In 1956 he donated his entire collection of coins (over 15,000 coins) to National Museum of Chinese History. He subsequently donated over 800 coins to the Shanghai Museum and the Sichuan Provincial Museum.

Publications

• 《沐園四よん十じゅう泉いずみ拓たく》 (Rubbings of 40 coins in the Muyuan Collection) (Shanghai, 1989)
• 《羅ら伯はく昭あきら錢ぜに幣ぬさ學がく文集ぶんしゅう》 (Collection of articles on numismatics by Luo Bozhao), ed. by Ma Feihai 马飞海うみ, Zhou Xiang 周しゅう祥さち, and Luo Jiong 罗炯 (Shanghai, 2004)