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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;dougsmit, post: 4498924, member: 19463&quot;]I tried on several occasions to get interested but failed probably because of the completely different mindset required to collect Chinese coins.&nbsp; We always tell people who drop in the Ancient area of CT from their usual modern homes that the rules are different for ancients.&nbsp; For Chinese coins, they are really different.&nbsp; AnYangMan&#039;s love of the patina is just one example.&nbsp; Western patina fans tend to prefer one color, thin and certainly not chunky.&nbsp; Another &#039;problem&#039; adapting is the attitude toward unofficial coins.&nbsp; TypeCoin shows us a large group shot with more &#039;ilicit&#039; coins than official and talks about funerary pieces that did not even pretend to be able to circulate.&nbsp; In Western ancient circles, those of us who collect unofficial (even fourree) coins are considered strange.&nbsp; Certainly the &#039;problem&#039; of modern fakes is troubling since there are so many in the series and being able to distinguish them seems a fine line since we hear of &#039;experts&#039; who disagree with each other on so many coins.&nbsp; Like the coins I collect, you must buy from a respected source until you are &#039;expert&#039; enough to protect yourself.&nbsp; I doubt my ability to learn the rules here in the time I have left.&nbsp; Of course there is the matter of language.&nbsp; I realize that the amount of Chinese language (not modern but a series of old dialects) needed to protect yourself from fakes cast with the words &#039;fake coin sold to foreigners&#039; is beyond my ability.&nbsp; Finally there is the fact that the economy in China has improved in the 30+ years since my first attempt to be interested resulting in collectors there repatriating many old coins of note.&nbsp; My ability to tell a $1 cash from a $10,000 one concerns me.&nbsp; My answer is to be happy with the few hundred cash I now have and to stick strictly to coins that are the cheaper of two options when I am not comfortable with what makes the difference.&nbsp; Come to think of it, that is exactly the advice I give to Western ancients beginners.&nbsp; If you can&#039;t run with the Big Dogs, stay on the porch.</p><p><br /></p><p>To make this post legitimate, a coin:</p><p>My favorite cash, Hartill 18.40, gains its rank solely for the patina giraffe on the reverse. <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie80" alt=":shame:" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" />&nbsp; It is a good example of why I can&#039;t collect cash rarities.&nbsp; My coin&#039;s top character has no protrusion of the bottom stroke to the left making it possible to write the character with only four strokes.&nbsp; Hartill gives this a very common rating (14).&nbsp; If that bottom line did extend to the left, the character would require a fifth stroke and the coin would be Hartill 18.41 (rarity 6 or 50 times the price of a 14).&nbsp; I am happy to have this coin just as it is and have no desire to &#039;upgrade&#039;.&nbsp; I hope the coin is genuine; I would be sad had I been deceived by a giraffe shaped patina blob.</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1115704[/ATTACH]</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1115714[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>Hartill is a fine book which I am glad to have.&nbsp; I even expect it to be worth more than I paid new when it is out of print (just like Sellwood).&nbsp; It is a big step up from the other booklets (Jorgensen and Cresswell) I had before it came out. It is, however just a catalog which is great for telling me that my coin is what it is but does nothing to explain why I should care whether there is no small protrusion on my Zheng making someone out there value one coin at 50 times the other.&nbsp; Perhaps what I need is a philosophical treatise on collecting these coins possibly explaining to my Western mind what it is that makes such a great difference in the Chinese coin market.&nbsp; I am unaware of an English language book of this nature.</p><p><br /></p><p>I really need to photograph the rest of my cash and label them is such a way that they make sense to me.&nbsp; Perhaps this time of solitary confinement would be a good time to start.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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