First, I am trying to identify several Chinese dollars as fakes or the real deals. To check out pictures and descriptions please go to http://www.cdcda.org/Coins/china.html. Second, I am very interested in creating a site dedicated to Chinese silver dollars, both fakes and the real mccoys. The idea was proposed in this forum, and I would like some feedback and the number of folks who would be interested in such and endeavor and support it by submitting their photographs. The number of fake Chinese dollars is astounding, and a guide of some sort online would be intensely useful. - Jason Pierce
Hello and welcome to the forum. I am unable to assist you in your current quest, but I can offer some advice on websites. Any coin site would garner some interest. How many follow the Chinese market is beyond me. My firm uses fakes and copies as an educational format. It would be very nice to see others do the same thing. Too many new collectors fall into that trap early in their learning. I don't know how easy it would be to get others to contribute. I do wish you the best of luck.
Welcome aboard Jason. It's nice to have another member interested in Asian coins. . #1 does look very similar to Kann# 11, and is also dated year 14, which Krause equates to 1888 on the western calendar (p. 236, 1st column, 19th Century 3rd Ed. 2003). The lack of a valuation in Krause simply means there is no established valuation basis. For example, Kann#9 is also listed as rare, with no value, but there is a note that a Choice XF example realized $46,200 at a 1991 Superior Goodman auction. That said, there are enough apparent differences in detail between #1 and the picture in Krause accompanying the listing for Kann# 11 to raise questions. The ring of beads directly adjoins the legend on #1, and there appears to be solid lines on both sides of the beads on the Krause picture of Kann# 11. #2 is a 1 yuan, dated as Republic year 3, which equates to 1914, rather than 1911 or 1912. It very closely resembles Pn32, a pattern coin never struck for circulation, cross-referenced to Kann#643, and valued at $2,250 in the 20th/21st Century 30th Ed. (p. 477, second column). I don’t have access to Kann, so can’t confirm the reference. #3 is also 1 yuan, dated 1912 (Republic First Year, not 1 Year). My specialty is post-1869 Japanese coinage, where it is customary to date coins “gan” or “first” rather than “ichi” or “one” in the first year of an Emperor’s reign, and I have no idea whether that usage, shown on this coin, is common or unusual on Chinese coinage. Besides the 4-dot replacement for the obverse rosettes, I can only see one difference in the design from Y#456 shown in the first column of page 467 in the Krause 30th Ed. The character at the bottom of the central circle on the reverse is “yon” or "shi" in Japanese, and means “four”. The picture of #3's reverse is upside down, and the line at the bottom of the four in the picture - actually the top of the character - should touch the vertical lines at both ends. It does so in the Y#456 picture in Krause; instead of having the very noticeable gap at the corner of the character in #3. All of that said, it is sometimes possible to tag a cast counterfeit from it's picture, but it is almost impossible to verify a genuine coin without an "in hand" examination. Each of the coins listed is suspicious, but in view of the frequent contemporary mint varieties in the late Empire/early Republic years, I'm not prepared to condemn any of them without further examination. Naturally if such a site is developed I'd like to see coverage of Japanese, and perhaps Korean & Indochinese coinage; along with Trade Dollars from Britain, the U.S., Japan, Mexico and other European countries as well. It has been said that there are more counterfeit than genuine Japanese silver yen coins, both contemporary cast and electrotyped circulation coinage, and modern forgeries intended for sale to collectors, and the same applies to the other silver coins used for international trade in late 19th Century/early 20th Century Asia. Sorry about the length of this post, but that's the way it goes sometimes .
Thank you for the in depth reply. Please see my comments below... Apparently I had my dating wrong. It was my understanding that Kwang-hsu was began his rule in 1889. How could the 14th year equate to 1888? Please excuse my ignorance here. I believe the next step, as with all of these coins, is to get the weight and attempt to determine the composition and method of manufacture. On a closer examination I do have suspicions that they were cast. For some reason Krause does not list the circulating versions of this design, there were in fact several different varities - all of which are rare - according to my Chinese reference books. Hey, I got the date right on this one! I believe this coin is almost certainly a fake. Traditionally, the "fake" or "fantasy" coins I have seen have minor strange variations such as the dots, characters which are not quite right (which I had not picked up on) and obverses and reverses that do not match. I will post when I have weighed and performed a closer examination of the coins. Actually, after giving the idea much more thought, I am not certain why I was choosing to limit the idea at all. I am now trying to explore what would be involved in developing, deploying and administering a system which would provide high quality images of all types of coinage along with images of fakes and/or forgeries for comparison.
Quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Originally Posted by satootoko #2 is a 1 yuan, dated as Republic year 3, which equates to 1914, rather than 1911 or 1912. It very closely resembles Pn32, a pattern coin never struck for circulation, cross-referenced to Kann#643, and valued at $2,250 in the 20th/21st Century 30th Ed. (p. 477, second column). I don’t have access to Kann, so can’t confirm the reference. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Now you know why I rarely say that something is true or false unless I have some authority besides Krause.
A good friend of mine travels too and from China on a regular basis to oversee the operation of one of his Chinese based companies. In addition to collecting some interesting pieces for me on a regular basis, he and I have discussed the history of Chinese coinage on numerous occassions. What I have learned through these conversations is that the information reported outside of China (in the past) on coin varities, mintage numbers, etc., etc. is, more often than not, completely or partially inaccurate.
Chinese coins webpage Hi! I am new to this forum starting today and wanted to ask you if you have gotten any further with the webpage on chinese coins? What is the current status? I would be interested and would also contribute.
Just some more info on the inscriptions on the coins: # 1 obverse: I agree this indicates this was made in the 14th year of GuangXu ( 光緒 ), or 1888. GuangXu Era began in 1875. The reverse contain the abbreviation 黔 for Guizhou / Kweichow. 黔寶 simply means the Cash of Guizhou. # 2 Indeed the coin is from the 3rd Year of the Chinese Republic (from the Chinese inscription), or 1914. # 3 The year indicates that it's the 1st year of the Republic ( 中華民國元年 ) or 1911. As satootoko said earlier, this is similar to the Japanese practice of using "gan" instead of using the numeric "one". If I'm not mistaken the centre characters in the ring of circles say 漢土 in calligraphy, which means the "Land of the Han (People)". The centre 4 characters on the reverse (the coin is upside down btw) says "Szechuan/Sichuan Silver Coin" and a value of 1 yuan at the bottom. The top indicates that it's made by the Government of Chongqing ( 重政府造 ).
