I know that to most of you seeing me ask about the authenticity of Chinese coins is like seeing a fish walking on land, but these later cash coins are out of my wheelhouse. I bought them with a large lot of Northern Song cash coins and everything else is unquestionably genuine. However, these two coins are among the most faked types in Northern Song coinage, and I have seen some scary good fakes. I am leaning towards good, but I want to be more sure before I sell them as genuine. @Ken Dorney @AnYangMan Da Guang Tong Bao 10 Cash Da Guang Tong Bao Iron 3 Cash
Well, I'm glad I clicked here because I learned something about faked Chinese coins. But I'm not gonna lie--I thought I was going to read something about the Beatles.
The Da Guan TB looks fine superficially. The green patina in spots look abraded or cleaned under the soil, so that would be hard to explain. I would use a toothpick and scrape a bit at the green and see how hard it is. If its soft its not old patina. I also wonder what the various blobs are that can be seen on the obverse. Is it corrosion or leftover casting metal? These were produced at the height of quality control and I have never seen any with bad castings. The iron example also looks fine style wise. However the soil seems to be applied. Look at the Guan character at the lower right and it looks like the soil appears to be turning upwards and flaking away. Soil should never do that but it will if it was applied recently and when wet. Then again, there are a number of iron examples on the market this year, but I have only see them in the single denomination, not in the 3 or 5.
In-hand, it looks like the coin was covered in dirt, and the fields were cleared as best the cleaner could manage. The green is under the dirt and both appear to have been cleaned at the same time. I scraped it with my fingernail and it did not come off. They appear to be gobs of hardened dirt.
I soaked the coin in acetone, and this is how it turned out after brushing under flowing water. I saw no evidence of a glue being used to apply a patina. Under magnification, I see raised bumps around the SE part of the Guan character. I theorize that as these bumps formed as the iron reacted with its environment, the patina cracked and was able to flake off. I have read somewhere that that can happen, but I forget in what context. I saw the same phenomenon on an unquestionably genuine Yuan Feng iron 3-cash Hartill also marks the iron 3 cash as more common than tge bronze version.
