Vacant lot find

[jimzz977]

Found this at a vacant lot in el paso tx can anyone know if it is old , read chinese

 

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[Tom_in_CA]

Those can date back to the 1600 & 1700's. And minted up to the 1910s, if I recall. And yours appears to be of the earlier type since it has only two characters on one side (as opposed to 4 on both sides, which are later types). They go in "dynasties" (of 30 to 70 yrs. or whatever), so you can never pin down an exact year. They are all worthless. And the fact of older ones (1600s & 1700's) have utterly no bearing on when the were lost/circulated.

Apparently they were stored in barrels in China, and broken out for long-term travel or whatever. So the age of minting has no bearing whatsoever on when they were lost. They turn up en-masse ANYWHERE the Chinese immigrants (RR workers, mine workers, ag. workers. etc...) came in. For example, they are a dime a dozen (even the 1600 & 1700's types) in China town districts of the CA gold rush camps. And RR coolie worker camps. And "china town" districts of west coast cities.

Fun to find. But unfortunately of no value, nor any indication of when they were lost (other than perhaps before 1920-ish).

 

[jimzz977]

Thanks Tom for info well at least could be 1700s c oin

 

[basque-man]

Cool find!!!!!

 

[bigfoot1]

yup...bout wet myself the first one I found...nailed it to mid to late 1700s.....worth 2 bucks in better shape than mine.since I have found many in the mining camps here....made a windchime...now I dig em....best windchime ever...btw...tom knows his stuff

 

[Spaceman Spiff]

I found one just like that under the keys of an old piano that my dad was re-tuning back when I was a teenager. Carefully lifted out and replaced the keys a couple at a time. Also under there was a steel cent, a few copper wheaties, a small skeleton key, and cut up strips of a ticket to some kind of baseball related banquet from the 1920s. Sadly I only have the wheaties now, no idea what became of the chinese coin or the key.

 

[EccentricInTexas]

If you search google there are a few sites that will be able to assist you in identifying it. The last one I got at a garage sale turned out to be Japanese.

 

[jimzz977]

Yeah I found a site on the internet found out the fact that I have with minted in Peking China in the 17 hundreds

 

[EccentricInTexas]

Neat!!! The one I had was from the 1800's

 

[jimzz977]

Yea is cool ,too bad not worth much. It's weird a 1700s coin is like a stinking Lincoln

 

[EccentricInTexas]

Yeah they made billions of them. Some of the larger cash coins are worth something and a few of the really rare ones. They used to thread string through them and wear them like giant necklaces.