i have recently got a few chinese repubkic silver coins from the late teens and early 20's. ive noticed many of the smaller silver coins, especially provinces, dont list a fineness or melt value. i read that a lot werestruck in different silver purities, but what was the reason for it?
What I have learned here is that quality control tended to be a big issue in China in the late 19th and early 20th century. Once the communists took over the country, it seems silver became more scarce. There is the tendency for communist countries -- e.g., post-tsarist Russia, post-revolution Cuba and communist China -- to remove the silver content from coins relatively fast. I would guess, as I can only do, that rationing of the metal, as rationing is the norm under communism, was a factor. There is also the possibility of insiders running the mints diluting the metal for their own personal gain, though I tend to think it was most likely the result of rationing. I refer to communism here because some Republic coins were restruck under communism.
that makes sense. the other thing i wonder is why catalog values are comparitively high compared to the high mintages for.some of them .
Early Chinese provincial coins are an interesting field if you read more into it. A lot of provinces tried to strike / cast coins that are available within their provinces. At times, they had to import metals from other provinces at a high cost. As you may guess, all parts of the world are blessed with all different kinds of minerals - some areas may be more blessed than others. A good example that I can think of is from two different provinces - Xinjiang (Sinkiang) and Gansu (Kansu). While they look like they are next to each other on a map, Xinjiang is blessed with various metals - from gold to copper whereas Gansu is stuck with an unusual situation: it had little silver and copper compared to other provinces however, it had plenty of antimony. In fact, Gansu tried to issue coins that were struck (?) in antimony but this failed miserably. In the early days of cast coin history, Xinjiang cast coins had high copper content whereas Gansu cast coins had high antimony content. This metallurgical history kept repeating itself during the Qing dynasty as well as Republican era. If I recall correctly, Xinjiang have struck coins in 1 tael (approximately 37 grams) whereas coins from other provinces struck coins in 7.2 mace, which is around 27 grams - big difference. The Gansu fat man dollar coin (Yuan Shi Kai) is an excellent example to illustrate how Gansu struggled to procure silver, and therefore it had to have mintmark to show which province it originated from. Obviously merchants avoided Gansu silver coins like plague as most other Fat Man coin's silver content range around 80-90% whereas Gansu silver coin is around 70% or less. Needless to say, Gansu coins are worth a fair amount due to lower survival rates compared to other provinces. Mintage figures may seem to suggest that some coins should be more common, you need to remember that a lot of metals were melted down during the Chinese Communist revolution in 1949. While a lot of references note that pig iron was created by pots and pans "donated" by peasants, a lot of coins were melted down as well. (They are metals afterall). Many materials not related to the Communist ideologies had to go. On top of that, it was common for old coins to be made into jewellery. While mintage figures say one thing, there is no proper study related to the survival rate of such coins.
This is also the reason you will not see silver purity or weight listed for many of the Chinese province silver coins when looking at Krause. For example, I've had genuine 20 cent coins of the same type that ranged from 4.6 grams to 5.3 grams in weight.
Actually, I mixed up some dates, but at least gxseries clarified the topic. Republic coins were, from what I gather, struck and restruck up to 1949, when China fell to communism. So, the communists who eventually took over had nothing to do with the inconsistent silver purity during the period of the Republic. Gradually, the silver purity of coins was lowered during the Republic, which indicates to me that scarcity of the metal may have been an issue, especially in certain provinces, as gxseries has pointed out.
Republican silver coinage is another matter by it's own in my opinion. Don't forget that within these years 1912 to 1949, there are still some different coins that floated around despite attempts to unify a national currency. This is when nickel-copper coins have made more of an appearance in attempt to appeal to the public (which did not go very well). While most silver coins would have disappeared by early 1930s due to the war, silver coins did appear for Tibet around 1930s to compete against the Indian rupee. The last time silver was struck was in in 1949 - struck by Yunnan and Xinjiang Provinces: both not heavily affected by world war II unlike Eastern China. I think there is a fair amount of information on the internet which I am not going to repeat. I would recommand this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_history_of_China_(1912–49) This is another link to read about internal affairs in China: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiangxi–Fujian_Soviet As of why the restrikes were done, I believe this was done as the public had little confidence with paper money. It is more than likely that there wasn't enough precious metals to float around and hence the amount of silver had to be reduced. Coupled with internal affairs and war, the public would have a lot more to worry. There's a lot to materials to go through if you are interested in this type of coinage but this is a landmine - full of counterfeits. As to illustrate a good example: A rather common silver coin - Same year: Most likely a lead-zinc / antimony alloy.
