Chinese Cash Coin Rescued- Help Appreciated

[bottlehunterofcoscob]

Detected this cash coin (my first) at a soon to be demolished house from circa 1910. It was the only thing of interest besides a handful of wheaties. I was wondering if anyone could help me get an ID and date/date range on the cash coin. It’s pretty wiped, but in the light you can make out some detail. Of course, I’m ignorant of Chinese characters, so the orientation could be wrong on the pictures. It rang up rather low IMO (60s on AT Pro), so I don’t think it’s pure copper/brass but instead some sort of alloy. Could be wrong though. Size is slightly larger than a quarter. Thanks for looking, happy hunting, and thanks so much in advance for any help!!

 

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[Professor of Engineering]

Nice find, congrats!

 

[dave wiseman]

There is a catalog for Chinese cache coins.Believe the date is determined by the emperor's name. Might be hard to decipher the letters as their are so many Chinese dialects....most no longer spoken today.

 

[eyemustdigtreasure]

Ah HA! I can help.
I've used this website (below), to key out three different Chinese coins
in the past.
They use drawings; photos; and text to help us English-speaking folks, and
educated in other than with the Asian-speaking-types.....
Kinda fun to key these old coins out.
The site will describe Dynasty period of time, materials for the metal to mint these,
and that will be the closest to a date of the coin.... Sorry, but hope I helped!
Good luck, and Happy Hunting...!
Chinese Coins

 

[CASPER-2]

http://www.calgarycoin.com/reference/china/chinaid3.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cash_(Chinese_coin)

FYIthey would make those Chinese coins by the billions and fill barrels with them... use them for years - you could have a 300- 400 -500 yr old coin that because of the surplus of them was not pulled from their stockpile until the 1800s
they were brought over in the 1800s with Chinese laborers and used amongst themselves in their work camps (railroads gold mines etc) and make shift towns and camps - eventually when they started to earn US coins - these were no longer accepted even among each other and were sold and traded as good luck pieces and for jewelry and artwork

 

[Mackaydon]

ID-ing the coin will get you the monarch's years of rule range; that's as close to a date you will get; these coins are not dated by year.
Don....

 

[Yang Hao]

http://www.calgarycoin.com/reference/china/chinaid3.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cash_(Chinese_coin)

FYIthey would make those Chinese coins by the billions and fill barrels with them... use them for years - you could have a 300- 400 -500 yr old coin that because of the surplus of them was not pulled from their stockpile until the 1800s
they were brought over in the 1800s with Chinese laborers and used amongst themselves in their work camps (railroads gold mines etc) and make shift towns and camps - eventually when they started to earn US coins - these were no longer accepted even among each other and were sold and traded as good luck pieces and for jewelry and artwork

Some chinese coins may have gold in them. please refer to my march post about a coin found then. http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/t...20-chinese-coin-gold-country.html#post6445864 The data from that post came from mainland china sources if you need a reference. At that time I didn't post the links because they are in Chinese.

as for calgarycoin I've looked at their coin history. it's great. However I think they should update their system to include the pinyin system. the Wade-Giels system is ok but its 2020 most keyboards and chinese input software use the pinyin system. When I post (and can see images) I'll try to include both systems.

Update. it looks to be a kangxi coin Qing dynasty 1662 - 1722. Here is a photo for others to compare to the submitted photo. However the backside of the coin is different than the above found coin.

 

[E-Trac-Ohio]

Cool find - congrats !

These old Chinese coins were also used as decorations on things like Sewing Baskets.
Very popular in the 1930's - 1950's era.

I would think that's one of the main reasons we find them around 100 year old houses here on the East Coast.
Now if you find one of these coins in the Western states - maybe it could have be lost by a 1800's railroad worker.

Good Hunting !

 

[Yang Hao]

Update. Found a copper version of that coin for sale on a Chinese coin website. That coin tail side looks identical to your coin. No price given (talk to the owner for a price). However the delivery price is 22RMB which is around 3 dollars US.

 

[CASPER-2]

they were brought over in the 1800s with Chinese laborers and used amongst themselves in their work camps (railroads gold mines etc) and make shift towns and camps - eventually when they started to earn US coins - these were no longer accepted even among each other and were sold and traded as good luck pieces and for jewelry and artwork

Cool find - congrats !

These old Chinese coins were also used as decorations on things like Sewing Baskets.
Very popular in the 1930's - 1950's era.

I would think that's one of the main reasons we find them around 100 year old houses here on the East Coast.
Now if you find one of these coins in the Western states - maybe it could have be lost by a 1800's railroad worker.

Good Hunting ! View attachment 1842359

 

[bottlehunterofcoscob]

Thanks to everyone for all your help! Cool to think of the many ways it could have traveled over here and made its way to central NY where I found it!

 

[Digger RJ]

Nice!!! Congrats!!!

 

[Mackaydon]

Yang Hao,
Good ID; how was the reverse described on the Chinese website.
This reverse is not one of the seven common reverses so I'm interested in knowing what is this one.
Don....

 

[brianc053]

OP, great find - congrats.
A couple of notes/points:
- the first link provided above seems to be a youtube redirect. Here is the direct address of where I found info on Chinese coins: coins of china, the Ch'ing Dynasty

- E-Trac-Ohio thank you for sharing that picture of the sewing basket. I had no idea about that sort of use for these coins, and could be a new explanation for my own find.

- OP I don't mean to hijack your thread but I also found one of these coins, here in New Jersey, back in the fall. I found it at a historic property in my town that I had permission to hunt, and before seeing the sewing basket picture I was looking for a more direct tie to China to explain the coin. The only explanation I could come up with was that one of the family members had served in China/India during WW2 and I guessed that this coin was brought back from that time.
Here are pictures of mine, which is more recent (from Emperor TE TSUNG time, AD 1875-1908. Reign title: KUANG-HSU, 1875-1908)
The leaf hides where I found the coin:


This picture was taken right after I removed it from the ground (the blue color disappeared after exposure to air??)

 

[bottlehunterofcoscob]

OP, great find - congrats.
A couple of notes/points:
- the first link provided above seems to be a youtube redirect. Here is the direct address of where I found info on Chinese coins: coins of china, the Ch'ing Dynasty

- E-Trac-Ohio thank you for sharing that picture of the sewing basket. I had no idea about that sort of use for these coins, and could be a new explanation for my own find.

- OP I don't mean to hijack your thread but I also found one of these coins, here in New Jersey, back in the fall. I found it at a historic property in my town that I had permission to hunt, and before seeing the sewing basket picture I was looking for a more direct tie to China to explain the coin. The only explanation I could come up with was that one of the family members had served in China/India during WW2 and I guessed that this coin was brought back from that time.
Here are pictures of mine, which is more recent (from Emperor TE TSUNG time, AD 1875-1908. Reign title: KUANG-HSU, 1875-1908)
The leaf hides where I found the coin:
View attachment 1842590View attachment 1842592

This picture was taken right after I removed it from the ground (the blue color disappeared after exposure to air??)
View attachment 1842583

Certainly cool to see how they turn up in the states!

 

[bottlehunterofcoscob]

This seems to be the one I found, to the best of my vision.

 

[Mackaydon]

The reverse image on the coin indicates it was produced at the 'Ning po' mint; first established in 1649.

Don......
PS: The mint was in an area known as Chekiang, now Zhejian; located on the East China Sea. The largest city in the area today is Hangzhou. D.

 

[Yang Hao]

Although many of the kangxi coins were used for decorations later in life, as I mentioned before, there are some kangxi coins that had gold in them. Many of those kangxi coins were melted down to get the gold out. However, it COULD be possible some of those coins made their way to North America (just a theory and I have NO PROOF to back it up). The chinese language site on kangxi coins didn't mention anything about the coins containing gold being in North America. Considering chinese history in the early days of North America (building railroads etc) anything is possible. Happy treasure hunting.