Has any one come across one of these.a Chinese Silver Bullion coin.44.9mmx2.5mm 30.7g,It looks to me to be very similar to http://www.mcsearch.info/record.html?id=328523 . But as there are so meany fakes despite the fine patina and good provenance I am unsure. Much thanks Justin
While I have never seen the original, yours is 99.99999% sure its a fake. Look at the coin. Its not worn really. Now look at the engraving. Look at the little swirly things in the sky then look at the linked pic. They are supposed to be flowers, but the engraver of the fake die was too lazy or unskillful to portray them as flowers, only squiggly things. Then the engraving of the horse, the waves, etc. Yours is simply a cheap copy of the original coin, most likely made out of pot metal.
All examples of this coin are fake. While Xinjiang and Fujian minted silver coins for "military pay and provisions" during the Qing Dynasty, Taiwan never did. You will not find this "coin" in any authoritative Chinese coin book. It is considered a "fantasy" piece as can be seen in this example. Gary
Thanks Chaps. That cleared that up. I did not want to disturb the coin to much so did not test it destructively, and only did a ruff density calculation with the dimensions. As it had the mint name in European text as well as Chinese script around the edge I did not think it was very old, but there is some very old patina so I thought it might have been a a replica coin produced for the European market before the fall of communism. Modern Chinese fakes have only started to become a real problem since an open market hit China.Which in it's self is of interest I will have to do a more accurate displacement calculation to see if it is any better than pot metal. Just
