Well, I know what they are, but I am looking for some input. All three, different sources, different decades:
The opinions of someone moderatly familiar with coinage from the era: The Ban Liang looks good to me. Can’t fault it calligraphy-wise, not a big fan of the patina, but I do not see any immediate red flags. But you can’t be careful enough with these Ban Liang’s with additional characters…. The patination and crystallisation on that Daji Wuzhu both good, but the type is not published and I highly doubt it is an official cast. Not sure. I do find the difference in patination between the Da and Zhu characters a bit odd. The Xu Zhu is in my opinion not genuine. This is mainly based on the calligraphy, which is different from all specimens I have seen. The Zhu is rendered more akin to a Western Han Shang Lin Wuzhu, much too even for it to be a Xu Zhu, where the character is much more uneven, the triangular component of the Jin radical is much more pointy and the Zhu shows less curvature. Xu is rendered in a different style when compared to most other Xu Zhu’s, where it is much less ‘square’ and less defined. I also find the difference between the wear on the characters strange. While the Zhu shows regular wear, covered over by a little bit of patina, the Xu is very crisp, with only the reddish encrustation covering it (which could easily have been faked). All genuine specimens I have ever seen (or at least those I considered genuine) also had a clear inner rim on the obverse. The overall patina looks good, so maybe a common Shanglin (without bar above the hole) Wuzhu with an added on or recut character? All in all, I feel relatively comfortable in at least putting some question marks next to this coin. Maybe the weight will provide some additional information? That being said, I do not really specialise in this area (I prefer Warring states coinage), so you may want to take what I say with a pinch of salt. Maybe @TypeCoin971793 has some additional opinions?
1. The style of the characters looks correct, but the patina gives me pause. It just seems too smooth. My initial gut feeling was that it was not good, but closer examination on a larger screen showed the patina to be more realistic than initially thought. I would pass on it if offered in an auction. 2. I see nothing on this one to make me doubt its authenticity. The style looks appropriate for the era, and the patina is exactly what I’d expect from being excavated from river mud after many centuries. You’ve posted this coin before, and I still believe it to be genuine. 3. The amount of wear on the Zhu character is not consistent with that on the Xu character. The isolated non-conforming patina around the Xu character implies that it was most likely added onto a genuine Eastern Han Wu Zhu. I’m not familiar with the type as @AnYangMan is, so I’d listen to his comments on the style. You’ve posted this coin before, and I still believe it to be altered.
The Ban Liang Ban Liang: I always wanted this to be real, but ultimately I never liked the patina. The soil seems applied to me. I dont think its good. The Da Ji I think is genuine. I have a reference for it somewhere, but cant find it at the moment. It may in fact be a charm rather than a coin, but there were also an awful lot of really oddball Wu Zhus with additional characters being made which some books simply do not attribute to any period. Finally, the Xu Zhu. I held out on this one as other opinions were split evenly on genuine or false. Now that I see these comments I agree the character wear is indeed wrong (and I had never noticed it before). Fake. Bummer.
