My co-worker dropped this off on my desk today, since my new obsession with coins is known office-wide. Anyway, I do know its a '20 cash' from 'fung-tien province'. I found some information about these types of chinese coins, however I could not find any that matched this one. I found gold, silver and copper '20 cash' but those didnt have the same symbols on the reverse (assuming the dragon side is the obverse. Can anyone give some information> rarity/value/ anything. thanks
The closest match I can find is Y#90, a 1903-1905 cyclic dated brass coin, but the characters at 3:00 and 9:00 are distinctly different. Conclusion? ??
I just got in and saw this. Nice assessment, it is a Y#90. If you are using the Krause as a reference, the coin pictured is a CD1904. The one posted by the OP is a CD1905. On these particular coins, the CD (cyclical date) is read by those two characters to the left and right. Unlike the rest of the characters on the coin, these ones are not in the same upright position. Instead, the top of the characters point inward on the coin, so you would have to tilt the head or rotate the coin to read the characters properly. The coin is a little better than what I have seen average circulated cash coins of that era. I would place the value at under $10 in its condition.
Thanks for the explanation. Next time I'll know. About the only non-destructive method I know of (other than going by the color) would be to perform a specific gravity test, which is far easier said than done.
Do you just post this in every single topic in the forums? I haven't seen you say anything but this and variations of this. No offense, but what's the point? Just trying to get your post numbers high for some reason?
