cherrypicking from chinese coin hoards

I've had these coins since my last family visit to Beijing. (I'm Chinese) when I visited my great uncle, he told me he got a surprise for me. He knew that I was into coins, and one of his former colleagues and friend dealer in coins. So what his friend did was going around the provinces of china visiting excavation and construction sites. He'd be there for the coins. Every once in a while, the farmers, and laborers would discover pots full of bronze coins. The common Chinese person wouldn't know the historical value of these coins, so this guy would go around purchasing muitiple hoards of tens of thousands of ancient and medieval coin hoards, buying it up for copper price. What he'd do is to hire several unskilled laborers, and to tell them to sort through the hundreds of thousands of coins, and sort out the coins. What he'd do next was to auction and sell of the rarities, and sell the common coins in hoards, and turning a huge profit, pocketing the rest for himself. Back to the story, my great uncle brought me and my sister, who doesn't collect coins, to this room full of coins! He gave me a doggie bag, and told me to take as much I' d like. There must have been multiple hoards being sorted out, in like a hundred buckets, full of coins! After 4 hours of cherry picking, I left with about 300 coins. I probably could've fit a thousand coins in the bag, but I was overwhelmed. Now I know most of you guys are thinking "oh! All counterfeits"! No, my great uncle has visited the sites himself, and these coins were dirt common, literally made in the hundreds of millions during the Tang and Song dynasty. Another reason was because most of these coins were heavily encrusted, well worn, or cracked or broken. So the coins I picked out were mostly better examples. When I brought these coins back to the us, I showed my coins to a family friend who is a 30 year collector, and expert of Chinese numismatics, who previously worked as a auctioneer in Hong, Kong, and operated in antiquity research. He took a look at several coins, and he told me these are authentic, but common. I've identified most of the coins, half of these are Song and Tang dynasty medieval common coins, minted 600-1200 ad, a 30-40 are Wu Zhu minted from 100 BC-600 AD, 9 banl liang from 221 BC-150 BC, and several outliers such as Wang mang 2000 year olds, and several Qing dynasty coppers.I think a few counterfeits is possible, as these were mixed in between dozens of hoards. Oh, and for anyone asking, no this is not illegal. According to antiquities laws in China, no objects made before 1911 may be exported, unless it is a 3rd rate antique, such as coins, and common antiques. Or it is a object which is provincial, or extensively replicated. So yes, this was exported lawfully, as these are 3rd rate antiques. Feel free to ask questions!

 

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sorry, give me some time to upload the media, my phone's slowing down.

 

sorry, 5-10 minutes left

 

Uploaded-Sorry these photos are so low quality, its night, taken from a phone, and I got a shaky hand. The 1st pic is a overview 2nd and 3rd is small denomination Song, Tang coins, 4th is ancient to early medieval wu zhu, 5th is pictures of large medieval coins, 6th are wang mang, and Ban liang, 221 BC-150 AD, 7th are qing dynasty, and several Japanese coins, the 8th photo is of the cull coins I picked out. And the 9th are medium size medieval denominations.

 

cool story noname, and looks like you have some pretty good looking coins there.


there are zillions of these things out there! this guy brought his shovel to do some cherry picking!

 

I know right? Entire medieval banks are unearthed, sometimes hoards of millions of coins are found in a single location.

 

If true this is certainly a fine example of how lowlifes come in all forms. There's nothing like taking advantage of and burning the poorest and often hardest working of one's own people; a true class act indeed....

 

Yeah, that's true, but that's a characteristic of early capitalism, and it kinds of relates to our society in a different way as well.

 

Amazing story! and amazing English as well! I will be honest, those song and tang dynasty coins seem to be so cool, even though they are common. (I am new to ancient coins and only have a few, although I have been collecting American coins for a few years now). Congrats on the new coins!

 

If I wanted to want to purchase a "common as dirt" coin from the tang or song dynasty, how much should I expect to spend?

 

Where did you find that fantastic photo, chrsmat71?

 

The problem I see here is the difference between a 5 cent coin and a $500 coin can be a distinction that none of us would recognize. I don't collect Chinese coins which means I only have a couple hundred. I recognize several common types in your photos but have no skills in sorting out the better ones. My suggestion to you would be to get books on the subject and learn enough that you are comfortable with the sorting. I have Hartill which is in English. If you read Chinese, I suspect there are better choices. My level of interest matches my lack of expertise so I have no desire to get into the subject farther. I am neither young nor have a family connection to more material in the future. You are both and probably should invest some study time.

 

Now I know what they mean by: Hungry Like A Bear ..

 

Yeah,in Chinese coins, a simple mark, or crescent, or symbol of some sort could make a 2 dollar coin a be worth sometimes 500 or more. I've also noticed that Calgary-coins is a pretty good resource for Chinese coins as well

 

Price isn't the issue, authenticity is. The more common ones go for only a few bucks, but 90 percent of the Chinese coins you go across are fakes, and pretty low grade. Also in the US, most people don't collect Chinese coins, so not everyone has a few in stock. I'd say try Vcoins.

 

While we see many fakes, I question the 90% figure unless you are talking about things seen in Chinese gift shops and the charm market where people buy them for feng shui or similar purposes. Can you provide links to numismatic sites like vCoins selling fakes of the common types? Perhaps a higher number of the spades and rarities are fakes and certainly these are things to buy from reasonably knowledgeable sources. Have you seen unmarked fakes from specialist dealers like Frank Robinson or Bob Reis? The problem with world coin dealers on vCoins and the like is that they tend to list only rarities as individuals. Many of mine came from bulk lots intended for those of us interested in representative commons rather than specialist stuff. eBay does seem to be a bad place right now. This blog has quite a list of sellers good and bad. Opinions?
http://fakecash.blogspot.com/2010/02/independent-ebay-dealer-rating-in-coins.html

 

Thanks for the info, but I didn't mean literally 90 percent, I meant that a lot of them are fake.

 

Thanks, but just to clarify, I'm a Chinese-American, I was born in San Fran, I was just visiting my parents "homeland"

 

your welcome, and opps, sorry about that. I hope that you had a good trip