I was cataloguing a bunch of Qing and Republic Chinese coins i bought and couldn't find where this one fit in. It seems to have the reverse of Y#138 and the obverse of Y#135. I don't have the Yeoman books so i can't find out if it is Y#137 or 136. Is it possible that this is a mule coin? and if so is it genuine? It weighs 7.3 grams and 28.15mm in width.
Here's a Mule but not Chinese and not a coin! Sorry, couldn't resist, hard to place a Token sometimes! I think your coin is a copy.
I bought it in a lot of 96 Qing and Republic coins at a coin auction here in Australia. What indicates to you that it may be a copy?
The looks of it, it looks like a modern copy of a very old coin. I could be wrong but I don't think so. Another thing is that squiggly thing at 9 o'clock on the obverse or the dragon side, I don't think that symbol is on a real Ten Cash coin.
There are a lot of varieties of late-Qing minted 10 cash coins! Many varieties of which will not be listed in a general-purpose world coin book. I have a whole book dedicated to them. These coins circulated a lot, and don't tend to show up in that kind of condition often. Given the number of replicas coming out of China these days, it's safe to assume most coins not showing honest wear are likely to be copies.
OK, I took photos of all the obverses and reverses of this type from Kiang-nan province. And the table of the rarities of the various pairings. The differences between some of the varieties can be quite subtle, such as minor variations in the handwriting of the characters. Even when this book was written (1971), he mentions many well-made forgeries existed.
The character you mention is on the Y#138 that i linked in the op. Thanks so much for the posting those pages, i was looking for this book online but its obviously been out of print for a while. If it is genuine it looks to be a J - 10 pairing, although i do agree with you that it is in too good of condition. All but two of the coins in the lot i bought are weakly struck and many with corrosion, two things which are good indicators of a genuine Chinese coin lol.
