Ancient China. Warring States Period. Wei 魏 State. Circa 403-225BCE. Ban Jin 半釿。Very rare. Ex Professor Wang Yixin 王一新 collection. This very rare and unusual coin was originally unearthed in 1991 around Shaanxi province. Only an estimated less than 20 specimens were unearthed and known to exist to date. Given their recent discovery and very limited spread and existence, many earlier catalogs did not include them including Hartill's except for a handful of recent ones. However, based on their geographic location and style, Chinese numismatists attribute them to the Wei State, which was one of the Warring states prior to the unification of China under the Qin. This coin has an unusual shape of a half circle and both the Ban and Jin characters inverted from each other. The hole in the middle was included as intended. The half circle was probably a visually practical design to denote a half Jin denomination where a full circle represented a full unit. Variants to the character designs exists. #china #Chinese #warringstates #ancient #ancientcoin #chinesecoins #cash #cashcoin #numismatics #antique #coincollecting #中国 ＃战国 ＃魏 #rare #rarecoins
