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Hi I have scanned a couple Chinese coins and wondering if there is a way of dating and identifing them? I have approx. 50 in an album.






Cheers Micky

How old?

At least 10 years old I'd say.

Maybe 20.

Buyable at all tourist markets in China for a few dollars a "set" of all dynasties, and some vast factory is still spitting them out I have no doubt.

These below I left in a junk carton I sold here earlier this month. I allowed a few dollars for the lot. Maybe I was wrong. But I seldom am

Oh my that's terrible. I bought them over 20 years ago from Wynyard Coin Centre. Maybe that was the reason I gave up collecting coins to many fakes around. I suppose my chinese knife money is also fake

Thanks GA, I might sell the lot as copies for a couple dollars.

Micky

These days the Chinese are faking near impossible to pick fakes of any coin you can name.

1930 pennies even.

Micky, from the dates on the last two, you might have a faint chance of them being genuine. Anyway, for what it's worth, No.4 is dated from 1736-1796, and No. 5 is dated from 1821-1851. Can't find the dates for No. 2 and can't read No. 1.

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'First I'll steal all the money, then I'll kill everybody, and then I'll go away', Père Ubu

The first, no.4, is the reign of Emperor Qianlong; no.5 is Emperor Daoguang.

The Qianlong emperor is considered one of the greatest in Imperial Chinese history. Upon assuming the throne, he said that if he was still alive after 60 years, he would abdicate in favour of a younger successor; in the end he was still alive, and kept his promise. He collected works of art obsessively; had an Italian Jesuit missionary (who adapted to China to such a degree he had a Chinese name and painted in Chinese style) working in the court--one of his projects was to design a series of palaces in Western styles. While European rulers often had a single room in their palace decorated in Japanese or Chinese, style, Qianlong had entire buildings scattered among the imperial grounds.

There was a thread here where IIRC doug222usa posted a website showing a coin-faking operation. These places can make a near-perfect die. They do slip up though--for early silver US Trade Dollars, the year they stamp on the coins pre-dates a bit the year the coins were first minted. Sometimes the coins are slightly off in weight, so a way to tell.

For ancient Chinese copper coins, even if they're original they might not be worth much. Even hundreds of years ago the population of China was in the tens of millions. Copper coins were for most places in the world the everyday money. Look at the Roman coin hoards found in the UK; similar can be found in China. There's no shortage of supply in some cases, so something 2000 years old can be had for a few dollars.

The coins have a hole in the centre so they could be carried on strings (also done in PNG, but in that case it was because the natives had no wallet or pockets--or no clothes at all to carry money in ).

There's all kinds of tricks that forgers utilize to age bronze (copper alloy) "antiques" to give them the green patina. The lazy or stupid just paint green on.

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Collecting Mongolia; Thailand; Indo-China; Mourning Covers; OHMS.
My online 'store': http://stampsfromaethelwulf.blogspot.com/

Thanks everyone, it is good to hear some good news and thanks for the support. I won't try getting these coins checked, probably cost way more then what the coins are valued (if genuine).

Happy and thankful for your help.
Micky

Those looked genuine to me, but they aren't necessarily Chinese; similar "cash" coins were minted in several not-China East and Southeast Asian countries.

The Cuhaj-Michael catalog of foreign coins, 1801-1900, does a very good job of introducing the basics of cash coins, although the style had been used for centuries before 1801. Cuhaj provides notes and sharp photos for 30 or 40 provinces.

I was in Shanghai for Xmas and saw a STACK of packs of these 'rare ancient coins' in a market for a dollar or so a pack.

Shanghai is a great place to visit and yes I seen many of those coins there, I did avoid them no problem what so ever. I did see something interesting on my travels around though, many people using detectors in the country side around pits and old rubble so I guess they were looking for the real ones or the ones that were buried for a while to look old.
Hope you enjoyed China, I go there every year.

Thanks for pics
Micky

I'd have bought a couple of those $1 packs; they help you identify other reproductions, and if accurately struck (which they no doubt are, using originals as a model), might help you recognize the real thing somewhere down the line.

I believe early Chinese explorers used barrels of coins as ballast in their ships. One wreck found off Bali in the early seventies contained millions of them and the locals used them to make souvenir items to sell to tourists. I still have a box of them somewhere, hundreds of years old but not worth much at all.

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I'm John. I collect Italian, particularly the Mussolini years.