Does the reverse on this coin have the mint dot in the lower center of the coin? It seems awfully low and touching the rim. It should be more centered in the field. But I'm not sure if placement was always dead center. I need some opinions on whether it's real or not. One of the pictures I took with the light source angled to show it better.
Well its Ching dynasty. I have many like this and to me it appears a casting error or imperfection more than an intentional mark. A lot of older Chinese had mint marks as certain repeatable dots or dashes, but a lot of Ching simply have some bumps that I do not see having any intended purpose. If you look closely, there are a couple of other similar bumps near the rim on this coin as well. I read something about this in Hartill's Ching Coinage book put out by the RNS, but cannot remember all of the details. Chris
Thanks for responding. Yes this is a Chia-ch'ing Tung-pao Type A coin on the obverse. If you look at the Krause Catalog for Chinese coins, 1801-1900, note coin number KM#442.3. This shows the dot in the field below the square center hole. But also note coin KM# 442.2, this cash coin has the dot above and it is almost touching the rim. So my question is: Does the placement of these dots vary some what, when they change molds for casting? Could the reverse of my coin be attributed to the KM#442.3 coin? Or is it simply, as you said, a casting defect.
The location and size of the dots may vary slightly, but I don't think a tiny one right on the rim like yours would be anything more than a casting fault. This one shows what the dot really should look like:
Thanks for the information and your opinion. I was skeptical myself, but Chinese Coins are new to me and I didn't want to just guess at it. I'm going through a small collection of world coins for someone else. I've collected US Coins and Currency for years and I'm finding this to be quite interesting. 1792 is old for US Mintage's but could be considered almost modern to other parts of the world.
