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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;manymore, post: 871776, member: 17118&quot;]This is a fantasy piece that never had a chance to be &quot;real&quot; coin.</p><p><br /></p><p>It has an obvious &quot;fatal flaw&quot; which I will describe at the end of this post.</p><p><br /></p><p>On the obverse side, the inscription at the top is (right to left) <i>gan su sheng zao</i> which means &quot;made in Gansu Province&quot;.</p><p><br /></p><p>The four-character inscription at the center reads (top, bottom, right, left) <i>guang xu yin bi</i> which translates as &quot;<i>guang xu</i> silver coin&quot;.&nbsp; Guang Xu was the reign title of Emperor De Zong who reigned 1875-1908 during the Qing (Ch&#039;ing) Dynasty.</p><p><br /></p><p>To the best of my knowledge, however, no silver coins were minted in Gansu Province during the reign of Guang Xu.</p><p><br /></p><p>The characters located at the 3 o&#039;clock and 9 o&#039;clock positions represent the Ten Heavenly Stems and the Twelve Earthly Branches.&nbsp; Based on an old Chinese calendar system this indicates the date (<i>yi si</i>) as 1905.</p><p><br /></p><p>The inscription at the bottom reads (right to left) <i>ku ping yi liang</i> which means &quot;Treasury Scale one <i>tael</i>&quot;.&nbsp; The <i>tael</i> was the standard unit of weight for silver at that time.</p><p><br /></p><p>The reverse side depicts a dragon and a horse.&nbsp; The dragon represents the Chinese emperor.&nbsp; I believe the horse galloping on a plain symbolizes the Mongol people who ruled China at the time and whose culture was strongly associated with the horse.</p><p><br /></p><p>The magnet test confirms that the coin is not silver, and therefore not &quot;real&quot;, despite the inscription indicating that it is one <i>tael</i> of silver.</p><p><br /></p><p>As to the &quot;fatal flaw&quot;, a Chinese emperor was always depicted on coins by a dragon with <u>five claws</u>.&nbsp; If you examine the dragon on this coin you will see that it only has <u>four claws</u>.</p><p><br /></p><p>Gary[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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