the "Fan Tan" ! Gambling may be the reason for all those Cache Coin Finds

[jeff of pa]

If you've been detecting long enough , You have found
these copper Chinese Cash (cache) Coins at railroad Camps,
Old Ghost Towns & parks also.



Sometimes it almost seems like it Rains Chinese Coins

I think I finally Found out the Reason.

"Gambling" & a game called the "Fan Tan"














Juniata sentinel and Republican. (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.), 10 Oct. 1883


http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/l...andtext=coins&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=2

 

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[bigfoot1]

great post..was wondering about that !!

 

[motel6.5]

When I found mine I put it on my key ring. Tried to swap it for a Kun-po chicken lunch one time, was told to keep it for good luck.

 

[brogansown]

Jeff, Out West we find Chinese cash coins regularly at old mining camps. We know the Chinese played Fan Tan, but generally these coins had no value in commerce since the white merchants wouldn't take them even though most of these early camps suffered from a lack of coinage of any kind-thus the use of gold dust and nuggets for purchases. We suspect that the Chinese came over from China with these coins thinking they would be just as valuable as in China but discovered they weren't. Anyway most in our area were discarded in favor of gold dust, the hated greenbacks and later U.S. coinage.

In one of our gold mining towns here in Eastern Oregon the merchants, including the Chinese laundry, made their own coins by stamping a 1, 5, 10, and 25 on clipped pieces of tin to use around town. And almost every U. S. coin we find are worn thin from repeated use. Some have even found foreign silver coins that were used like the Spanish pieces of eight so useful in our Colonial era. I've never found any, but am intrigued by this whole commerce thing.

Good find and nice article Jeff. Thanks.