My wife just inherited a boat load of Asian coins what's the best way to get a value on them?

They are in envelops

 

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There are some incredibly rare coins in those envelopes, although I already doubt their authenticity without having seen them. These would be coins that rarely appear on the market and would fetch handsome prices if genuine! If you could show the coins themselves, particularly those that are dated BC, we could give you a breakdown of the authenticity!

Tagging @TypeCoin971793 for when I am asleep!

 

Missed these! They are genuine Warring States period knives. One Ming knife for the state of Yan, 300-221 BC and two pointed-tip knives from slightly earlier but the same regions. These should do around 80-120 USD all together.

This is not actually a coin, but rather a charm. Most of these are modern fabrications, although I am not familiar with this particular type.

 

They where bought at the hans m f Schulman coin auction in Manhattan in 1958 59. A respect numismatist on 5th ave.
Tom

 

Okay. Make sure you tell that to the appraiser who you next take these to.

You may not like to hear this, but "respected numismatists" have sold counterfeits before. Your case would not be the first time.

The only way to find out if the coins are authentic or not is to get them appraised.

 

Having such a nice provenance is a great thing! Chinese coins have been counterfeited for centuries, although the older forgeries are way easier to detect than the modern ones. Those older fakes are what we call ‘one-eye fakes’, such as that Qi knife earlier on in this topic. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love for them to be genuine, that would be quite the find. Schulman was indeed quite a reputable numismatists, even within the area of ‘primitive’/odd & curious coins, but now there is way more data available to authenticate them and detect forgeries. As I said, older forgeries are relatively easy for us to detect nowadays. Spades and knives, those strange, non-round coins from the Zhou/Chou dynasty are my speciality, I would love to take a look at those for you to see what is in there!

 

I would say a majority are authentic namely the small cash coins. Some knives such as the Ming knives are genuine. However the genuine ones are not the very expensive ones. Some are doubtful like the large Qi knife.

 

Here they are wish me luck! I hope there not forgerys.

 

I don't like the file lines on the last picture.

 

Thanks for those additional pictures! Just as I suspected, a fair few of those are reproductions. That Shan Yang spade (worth around 2000 USD if genuine), the Yuan Yi Chin Gong round coin (worth even more if genuine) and the Yi Liu Hua (Pao Luh Hwa) are all forgeries I am afraid. The two ant-noses, those oval things in the middle are genuine and are worth 15-25 apiece. The patination on that Ming Hua looks decent, although the craftsmanship looks a little too good/straight. It might have a shot at being genuine, but I can’t tell from the picture alone. If genuine it would be a 70 USD or so coin.

 

Keep 'em coming...

 

I'm already getting mix up here! Thanks

 

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Post a picture of the boat they came in.

 

Thank you, everyone for helping me!

 

Post more pics!

 

I'm glad this is getting some traction

 

The "Value 5000" coin at the upper left could be interesting...

 

Do you see anything like this? @Thomas Kirby






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