Chinese Coin Date?

[Baldingboy]

I found this Chinese coin at a Civil War era house. Any info is greatly appreciated.

 

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[Tom_in_CA]

reply

I found this Chinese coin at a Civil War era house. Any info is greatly appreciated.

Baldingboy, I'll let someone else answer the date part. Those go in "dynasties", not invidividual years. So they can cover, for example, 50 yrs, or whatever. Yours is one of the older ones, because the one side has only 2 characters, while the other has 4 characters. The newer ones had 4 characters on both sides. They ceased being made soon after the turn of the century, altogether.

Once you get your date-range, it has almost no bearing on when it reached your site, or when it was lost. Those coins were sometimes 100 to 200 yrs. old, before they even reached the USA. We find those cache coins by the handfuls out here in the west at some places (where there was heavy chinese immigration in the 1800s for the mining and RR workers). Some of them can date back to the 1600 and 1700s, but have no bearing on when they got here to the USA. I guess there must have been barrells full of them in China, which got opened at various times for travelling and/or use? Who knows.

And they are all worth nothing. But they're fun to find, because when you start getting those, you know you're in an area that dates to no later than the mid 1910s. Ie.: can get barbers or seateds.

 

[Mackaydon]

You can learn about Chinese cast coins here:
coins of china, the Ch'ing Dynasty
Don....

 

[kuger]

Baldingboy, I'll let someone else answer the date part. Those go in "dynasties", not invidividual years. So they can cover, for example, 50 yrs, or whatever. Yours is one of the older ones, because the one side has only 2 characters, while the other has 4 characters. The newer ones had 4 characters on both sides. They ceased being made soon after the turn of the century, altogether.

Once you get your date-range, it has almost no bearing on when it reached your site, or when it was lost. Those coins were sometimes 100 to 200 yrs. old, before they even reached the USA. We find those cache coins by the handfuls out here in the west at some places (where there was heavy chinese immigration in the 1800s for the mining and RR workers). Some of them can date back to the 1600 and 1700s, but have no bearing on when they got here to the USA. I guess there must have been barrells full of them in China, which got opened at various times for travelling and/or use? Who knows.

And they are all worth nothing. But they're fun to find, because when you start getting those, you know you're in an area that dates to no later than the mid 1910s. Ie.: can get barbers or seateds.

....mostly true,aside from "all worth nothing"...................I have found three that have sold for $100....pretty good change if you ask me?For the most part they are VERY common and most worth very little

 

[Tom_in_CA]

reply

....mostly true,aside from "all worth nothing"...................I have found three that have sold for $100....pretty good change if you ask me?For the most part they are VERY common and most worth very little

I wonder .... if there were a few with numismatic value, then how often do they appear, ratio-wise, to the common ones? I mean, if we're talking the ratios of a 1909s vdb vs other random chance wheaties, then ..... you can see ....... the odds of ever getting one of the rare ones, is going to be slim. I have found hundreds of those cache coins, and stopped looking them up after the 1st couple 30 yrs. ago.

One day, I made the acquaintance of a local Chinese lady, whose ancestors had arrived here as fishermen back during the gold rush. They'd come over on a Chinese "junk" boat, all the way across the pacific (no kidding!) and almost died trying to reach the west coast. Once they got here, they abandoned their plans to go to the gold fields, and just stayed on the coast, near Monterey. Amongst the first Chinese to settle here. This lady has all her families history recorded, back to those great-ancestors first arrival. So she is frequently called upon to speak about the Chinese history of the central coast. I gave her about 50 of these cache coins, to use, and pass out, for when she gives talks to area elementary schools. With my luck, one of them was the $100 ones, haha

I know you've got fistfuls of them too Kuger, from gold rush sites, right?

 

[kuger]

Yea,Tom that is true....the "Valuable ones are rare",thats why they have value I reckon?There are so many types and varieties that most....myself included do very seldom attempt to self ID them(I have a very good friend and EXPERT,in Korea do my iding)I also give away a great many of them....after they have been ided of course.
Tom,yes I do have handfuls of them...

 

[caprock]

Has anyone ever thought about documenting where these coins turn up in the Mother Lode, in order to shed some light, on where, and where not, the Chinese actually lived and/or mined. So little is actually known about the participation of the Chinese during the gold rush. Of course we have a lot of stories passed down from "old timers" about China Towns, Chinese Diggins' and Chinese built rock walls (most of which were not built by Chinese), but hard fact are not easily obtained. Much of what passes for history was written during the 1930s with little or no evidence has come down to us today as the truth.Beware especially of the California historical markers, most at best contain a kernal of truth, but many are simply flights of fancy. It's to bad, because the real history is often so much more interesting. Just some food for thought.

 

[kuger]

Very good points Cap,but the Chinese were pretty much every where they could be...pretty hard pressed to not find some evidence of them anywhere.Also,sadly Chinese relics are pretty much scoffed at by most detectorists....especially the coins.To me however...I am enthralled with Chinese Lore

 

[bill from lachine]

Folks,

Some interesting info on the Chinese cash coins.....I found one at an old school site in my area....circa 1662-1722 could have been a show and tell item, came in with the fill, etc...

With the bit of snooping I did they might have carried some value as tokens within the Chinese communities back in the day.

Also the term cash as used in the English language referring to money comes from this currency....also the reason for the square hole in the middle was they were strung on a cord or rope for safe keeping as the early Chinese immigrants didn't
have pockets in their pants as was the Western tradition at that time.

Regards + HH

Bill