If genuine (and I am not aware of the Imperial Kiangnan provincial coins having any major counterfeit problems ) you have a 10 cash (Y#135.9), one of 496,020,000 produced at the Nanking Mint in 1905; distinguished from other varieties of the same year by the small round rosettes on each side of the dragon on the reverse. It's copper, and from the picture appears to have F detail (the 2006 Krause says $1), but the dark spotting would drop it to a net VG IMHO (Krause = 35¢). Kiangnan was a district comprised of the provinces of Anhwei and Kiangsu, with its capitol at Nanking. Shanghai was in that district in Imperial times. The inscription reads Kuang-Hsu Yuan-Pao. Kuang-Hsu was one of the last Qing Dynasty Emperors, ascending the throne at 3-1/2 years of age under the regency of his adoptive mother, the Dowager Empress Tz'u-hsi. Although he tried to assert himself as a teenager, he remained under the thumb of the Empress until his death in 1908, the day after the Empress passed on under suspicious circumstances. (Thank you Krause for the historical note. )
Counterfeits are easily found on the streets of NYC for $1 for the tourists, though I have yet to see one made out of copper.
Ooo i thought there would be counterfeit problems when i saw them in several Chinatown stores in Toronto selling by the tupperwares! Beside imperial coinage there were also early republican coinage for sale (1911-1949). I held and resisted and didn't buy any until I could find more info on them. It's really suspicious that they were selling maybe 25c a piece. Any tips on weeding out the fakes? I do read Chinese if that is required as part of the identification. This is contemporary fakes we are talking about or modern fakes for tourists? I understand contemporary fakes could worth just as much if not more. The squirley script in the middle is Manchu, the script for the Manchurian rulers. Although Manchu was still the langua franca of the ruling class, the de facto language in and out of the palace had been Chinese. Manchu is near extinct today with native speaker less than a thousand.
Learning to identify counterfeits generally requires experience. You have to be familiar enough with the type of coinage to know what it is you are looking at and when it does not look right. You can also weigh & measure the coin and this will often give it away.
I was just looking up my Chinese Almanac for some info on another Chinese coin identification on another post and I remmember about this post. I can tell you there is almost nothing from the inscription alone that says the 10 mil coin is a counterfeit unless i can see one of the inscription upclose. The inscriptions on both sides match. Kiang-nan and ( 江南省造 ) both indicate the same origin. The key is on the date, and I have to see it upclose. The wear on the character may be just enough to disable the possibility to authenticate. The year is either indicated by the characters 乙巳 or 乙己 (note the second character can be a legitimate character either closed or open). If it's 乙己, it would immediately prove your coin as counterfeit, since no such year exists. If it's "乙巳", it would put the coin at 1905 in the 31st year of the GuangXu Era ( 光緒 ) just as your dealer said. "乙巳" is the lunar year cycle which repeats every 60 years. it could be 1845, 1905, 1965 etc. But given the Era inscription, one can be sure this would be 1905 if the coin is genuine. "巳" indicates that it's the Year of the Snake btw.
