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Message:: [QUOTE="manymore, post: 802451, member: 17118"]Because of the differences already pointed out, we now know for a fact that the coin is not 16.399, 16.400 or 16.401. Hartill's book only introduces a very few representative varieties of this coin. I have a reprint of a Chinese coin catalog that was written by a famous Japanese collector in the late 1800's.  While Hartill provides rubbings of 6 chong ning tong bao coins, this old Chinese catalog has rubbings for 81 different varieties. For the chong ning zhong bao coin, Hartill has rubbings for 13 varieties while the Chinese catalog documents 142. There are so many varieties of the 10 cash chong ning coins that I am not aware of any catalog in any language that comes close to documenting all of them. I actually tried to identify the variety of ls8driver's coin in the Chinese catalog but finally gave up in frustration because the differences among the varieties is so subtle. It's a beautiful coin with an <a href="http://primaltrek.com/chinesecoins.html#chong_ning" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://primaltrek.com/chinesecoins.html#chong_ning" rel="nofollow">interesting history</a> and odds are that it is one of the more common varieties. On the other hand, there is always the possibility that it is a variety even rarer than Hartill's "large character" specimen. Gary[/QUOTE]