Varieties of the founding of Republic of China 10 cash coins - 1912

The era of Chinese Emperor ended in 1911 after the Xinhai Revolution.

The new Republic was founded on the first day of 1912 and several coins were issued to commemorate this event. Previously every province were issuing their own coins and this would be this first time were attempts were made to have a standard unified coinage.

Here are some varieties that are reasonably cheap to obtain:







Note that there may be varieties i.e. calligraphy differences, number of leaves etc.

This coin however is an interesting one and I bought this by pure luck:



This doesn't appear on the market very often - could be reasonably scarce. Maybe you would have some of these in your collection?

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

The coin is indeed interesting even though it is not much scarcer than the other varieties.

According to the authoritative Chinese reference "Great Dictionary of Chinese Numismatics" (中國錢幣大辭典), this variety was not produced in 1912 but rather during the period 1913-1915 at the mint in Tianjin.

Unlike the more common varieties, the Chinese inscription at the bottom of the obverse side is not kai guo ji nian bi (開國紀念幣) or "Commemorative Coin of the Founding of the Country".

Instead, the inscription is gong he ji nian bi (共和紀念幣) or "Commemorative Coin of the Republic".

This is the "circulating" version of the coin.

There is also a very famous pattern or "signed" version of this coin which can be seen at this website. If you look carefully at the reverse side of the coin (the "ten cash" side), you will notice the name "L. GIORGI" written in English in very small letters at about the 3 o'clock position next to the rim.

L. Giorgi was a very famous Italian engraver who was working at the Tianjin mint during this period. You can read more about L. Giorgi at the Tianjin mint in this article and associated comments.

The "pattern" version of the coin is very rare. This particular specimen sold at China Guardian Auctions in 2011 for the equivalent of about US$48,000 (RMB 299,000).

What is particularly interesting to me has to do with the inscription "Republic of China" (中華民國) near the top rim of the obverse side on the "circulating" version of the coin. You will notice that the character min (民), which means "republic" and is the third character from the right, is written in an unusual manner. The character seems to be missing the top horizontal line.

This does not appear to be an "error" because all specimens that I have seen in Chinese coin catalogs show the character written this way.

If you look at the "pattern" version of the coin, or any of the other varieties, you will see that the min character is written in the conventional manner.

I would be interested in learning more about this unusual calligraphy and would be very appreciative if anyone can provide additional information.

Gary

 

氏 could be shi and that would make sense if the character were alone. 氏 being the word used for clans in ancient China. 中華氏國 presents problems though. My reference is here:

http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%B0%8F_(%E4%B8%AD%E5%9B%BD)

It's in Japanese as I can't read Chinese and I could not find a good source in English. This is on the top of my list of intrigue now so hopefully I can find more reference.

Any added thoughts would be appreciated.