chopped trade $

What exactly is a "chopped marked" trade dollar?

 

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Trade dollars were made specifically for trade in the orient . They were distrustful of coins that might not contain the proper amount of silver . So they would test a few for fineness and then punch in a personal mark or chop to identify them as good coins . The chops look like Chinese characters in writing . Some might have one punch or as many as ten as each chopmark was known in a specific area . Sort of like if your town put a mark on it and then another official from another area would put his mark on it . Try googling chopmark . if this didn't help .

 

Ironic, isn't it, that the Chinese of that day didn't trust the specifications of our government silver, but today they seem to have no problem flooding our market with fake crap.

 

Was just thinking the exact same thing reading this.........

 

I'm sure they had no problem trusting the specifications of our government silver, they were worried about counterfeits not made by our government. (Possibly made by other Chinese.)

 

You're right there , they loved The Spanish 8 reale , but those were chopmarked too .

 

There is only 1 chopmark. When i see marked trade dollars, they ussualy have a lot of them.
That peice is really nice, the chopmark is not that distracting.

I Approve!:smile

 

I just noticed that my 1874-S has a small chopmark on the left side, between the wing and the leg