Chunk of Chinese Silver

Here is a chunk of Chinese silver. It weighs 88.4 grams and is from the Qing Dynasty 1644-1911.

Bone

 

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I want one of these, but am not confident enough in my knowledge of them to distinguish from the myriad numbers of forgeries.

 

I had this certified by a friend who works at Landstroms Black Hills Gold. I'm not sure how he did it but it's silver. The seller was in the USA and offered a 100% lifetime guarentee. So, I took the chance. I think it's authentic

Bone

 

That is an interesting piece of exonumia Bone. :thumb:

Charlie

 

There is no guarantee if that is a genuine or not. Even experts find it difficult to tell from the genuine ones and it is said that one might need mass spectrometry to check the alloys. No, specific mass gravity will not do the trick for this one. One might argue that if it's a counterfeit, silver wouldn't be used, but that is not the case with modern forgeries. In fact, such taels are said to be a lot easier to be counterfeited than the already heavily counterfeited Japanese yens.

It might be a genuine but the strikings are making me doubt otherwise.

 

I appreciate your opinion but what in the strikings make you think otherwise?

B

 

Ignoring the obvious.

Well, the bar is upside down in the picture. How many genuine examples of these has your expert seen? Making the tael from 3 ounces of real silver is not a challenge. Making the punches is not a challenge.

You say that the seller gave you a 100% guarantee. Was that Frank Robinson or Scott Semans or someone equally as reputable in Asian (esp Chinese) numismatics?

Inquiring minds want to know. It is a cool artifact, and if genuine it is an interesting addition to any collection of world money.

 

I personally find the relationship between worn areas and "fresh" striked area quite a fair bit of differences. I am quite oddly baffled over how such silver could be worn at some odd areas, but again, it might be the irregularity of the struck area that could have caused odd areas to wear out faster.

What I find it slightly odder would be the figure "8" area, where you see some "odd" rust impact, or "scratches" if you like. Perhaps different dies? Struck earlier from the other 3 bars??? I just don't know but from the "rust", it just seems to be struck at different times. Just my opinions though.

 

Chuckle, your the 2nd person to tell me it's upside down when I posted a picture. Initially I posted a thread on it at the PCGS Darkside forum and a couple of individuals commented on it. There were those who as you felt it was a questionable artifact and then there were those who felt it was genuine. Very few middle-of-the-road voices.

As far as the seller It was a gentleman named Gerald Endres who resides in Traverse City, Michigan who acquired it in a Museum sale in Ann Arbor.

Be advised I was just browsing the listings of another defunct coin/artifact auction service, I cannot recall it's name. As I was not searching for a piece like this and only agreed to the sale after hearing his guarantee and the pedigree of the bar. The final winning bid was mine, $249 and $7.00 S&H.

Margaret Coolroot of the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology verified it's authenticity and I have the COA around here someplace. I'm not the most organized person in the world

Bone

 

I just can't see how any expert could be confident of the authenticity of an alleged ancient object that would be so easily manufactured.

I'll bet it is legitimate, but a good artist would have little difficulty making something like that. If I were going to make forgeries, I would study the ancient coin making process, and research the composition of ancient metals. I would buy a real one, or one that the big guys think is real. Then I would get busy.

I suspect that there is simply not enough money in making phoney coins. Really valuable pieces must have other, almost unique, features. That's my guess.

I am still pondering dipping and custom toning.

 

I have even seen a fascinating book in Barnes & Noble that I regret not having purchased which explained in amazing detail how to manufacture your own counterfeit coins. Hopefully this book doesn't get translated into Bulgarian and Russian.

 

You should post this on http://www.zeno.ru/

This site has many people that are knowledgable about sycees.

 

Provenience is the Essence of Attribution.

OK, I can go with all of that. If all of that is true, then it can be accepted as genuine.

You have your nose right up to the trees. The bark has a bug on it. Now, step back and appreciate the forest. This not some product from the US Mint. Die wear and uneven areas and stuff like that are totally irrelevant to this. As for that uneven wear, I have a Tibetan Sho coin, still fresh and sharp with one little spot smooth. On RCC, we went around on something like this on the question of how coins were test cut in ancient times. So, I tested a few. Unless you actually practice the craft, you are guessing, and probably guessing wrong. On a different but related matter, how can Roman coins have such compelling protraits of the emperor on one side and crude stick figures on the other? Would you claim that the stick figures were cut and struck in ancient times, but the portraits were done with better tools by better artists much later?

QX, you have to take the artifact as it is on its own terms within its own cultural context. Considering it thatway, it could have been made at any time. I mean, the COA may or may not say "18th Century." (Bonedigger is disorganized.) It might be a 19th or 20th century object. It might be 14th century. We will wait and see. What we do know -- apparently -- is that it was not made yesterday for sale on eBay, and that much is good news.

 

True, it can be from the 17th century to the 20th century. Depending on how it is preserved, it can be in any state.

I personally don't like the look of it. Having seen plenty of counterfeits floating around in Asia which looks similar, I wouldn't even dare to touch it unless I want one as an example. There were few cases where remote museums in China that had issues with counterfeit sycees. I wouldn't fork out too much money even if it was "shown" to be a genuine one - there were times years down the road where that gets disproven, much to the disappointment to everyone. Afterall, those are made from cast silver, with no proper "control" except to some degree purity and crude mass weights.

Like I said, I am no expert, but this is one area where I can help, which is to translate the inscribe text. The text "財源茂盛" or in hanyin would be "cai yuan mao sheng" (yes the bar is upside down), which roughly translates to "The source of wealth from an excellent economy". Hopefully my chinese has not rusted that bad yet...

 

With China, there are many fakes of Chinese, Russian, USA coins, modern and ancient. It is obvious to you collectors of USA coins for instance that an 1846 Silver Dollar is fake by the diagnostics of the piece, however when you get into a Chinese coin that is a different story. As GX points out it could have been made earlier this year or sometime 300 years ago. It is not a set design that is well known. Most of these pieces are unique in someway.

It just maybe given the ease of making them, that the value of the originals without corresponding documentation of their existence will significantly erode because there is not an easy means of authentication of said pieces.

 

Well, I like the looks of it and consider it to be authentic as do many others. Granted, there are many counterfeits out there today but I've NEVER seen one shaped or marked like this piece.

I seem to recall it's purity was roughly the same as Sterling and it was picked up in Taiwan during the 30's. I'm going to try to find the papers from the transaction today.

This isn't an ancient piece and shouldn't be considered one either.


Bone

 

I like it Bone! I don't know a thing about it , but it's a neat looking artifact!

 

You could probably still find it. I saw it the last time I was there, so I think it is something they carry usually. It tells you how to electroplate, hammer copy coins, etc. The purpose of the book is to "detect counterfeits", but it's definitely more of a guide to producing counterfeits. He interviews some famous counterfeiter and got a lot of information from him. Apparently this guy is so good, he had several of his fakes slabbed by first tier TPGs. Assuming we are talking about the same book. I think I am going to go buy it now that you have reminded me about it.

 

I'm going to post his knowing full-well it's not going to change any minds which are already made up One of the The beauties of the hobby is diversity and sadly some of the ugliness of the hobby is fraud. One must be brave enough to buy what you think is beautiful and then believe what others tell you about it.

Sometimes it's a very difficult thing to do

Bone

 

Nice piece Bone, even if it did turn out to be a fake it is still a nice one If one wanted to take this to it's ultimate conclusion then one would never ever purchase anything ever again LOL and guy's even the big boys can be fooled just read up on Stanly Gibons and the French Forger LOL

De Orc