Silver Chinese coin/token ID?

[Noah_D]

Howdy, my uncle (a fellow coin collector and detectorist) gave me this neat little thing a few years ago. I don't know where he got it and I don't think he could remember either. It's about half dollar sized and feels like silver but that's about all I know. Can anyone ID it? Thanks!

EDIT: sorry about the sideways pics. I still haven't figured out how to keep TNet from rotating them.

 

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[Red-Coat]

Well, I think what it’s trying to be is one of the fledgling currency coins issued under military rule, independently in several regions of China in 1912/1913 after the Qing dynasty had been overthrown in the Xinhai Revolution.

Yours has the obverse and reverse designs used by the Sichuan Mint, which produced silver ‘dollar’ (1 yuan), half ‘dollar’ (5 jiao) and 20 ‘cent’ (1 jiao) coins using essentially the same designs for all denominations. If yours is similar in size to a US half dollar (31mm) then it will be a ‘5 jiao’ (33mm). The fineness of the silver was poorly controlled, varying between .500 and .880 fine and there were numerous variations in characters, their styling, and size.

However, my feeling is that the characters on yours are suspiciously thick and with variations I haven’t seen on genuine coins. Compare to these genuine examples of 1912 Sichuan ‘5 jiao’:





These coins have been heavily counterfeited in modern times (especially the ‘dollar’) and were also counterfeited during the 1930s by the Red Army for use in ‘enemy’ territory. The latter are, perversely, more sought after by collectors than the originals and can command high prices… but yours doesn’t appear to be one of those. They almost always have faint but distinguishable concentric rings on the field of the flan (a bit like the rings on a tree trunk) because of the method by which they were produced.

I would say this is a modern imitation, although it may well be silver of some sort.

 

[Noah_D]

Well, I think what it’s trying to be is one of the fledgling currency coins issued under military rule, independently in several regions of China in 1912/1913 after the Qing dynasty had been overthrown in the Xinhai Revolution.

Yours has the obverse and reverse designs used by the Sichuan Mint, which produced silver ‘dollar’ (1 yuan), half ‘dollar’ (5 jiao) and 20 ‘cent’ (1 jiao) coins using essentially the same designs for all denominations. If yours is similar in size to a US half dollar (31mm) then it will be a ‘5 jiao’ (33mm). The fineness of the silver was poorly controlled, varying between .500 and .880 fine and there were numerous variations in characters, their styling, and size.

However, my feeling is that the characters on yours are suspiciously thick and with variations I haven’t seen on genuine coins. Compare to these genuine examples of 1912 Sichuan ‘5 jiao’:

View attachment 1861236

View attachment 1861237

These coins have been heavily counterfeited in modern times (especially the ‘dollar’) and were also counterfeited during the 1930s by the Red Army for use in ‘enemy’ territory. The latter are, perversely, more sought after by collectors than the originals and can command high prices… but yours doesn’t appear to be one of those. They almost always have faint but distinguishable concentric rings on the field of the flan (a bit like the rings on a tree trunk) because of the method by which they were produced.

I would say this is a modern imitation, although it may well be silver of some sort.

Thanks Red-Coat! I did think the letters were quite pronounced at first... that's why I was leaning toward token rather than coin. Regardless of old or modern it's silver and I'm happy! I'll look into whether it's a repro or not though.

 

[Yang Hao]

Not much else to add but i did notice the wu 5 at the bottom of you coin is different than coins identified as genuine. You coin is written as 伍角 and not 五角 (reading the coin from right to left.) although 伍 wu has been used in the past on notes and coins, I did an image search on baidu for any sichuan coins with 伍 on them and I only came across one image. It was a Chinese language forum post from 2012. The poster was asking if his coin was real. He claimed his 87 year old grandmother gave it to him. However, the responses were just speculations and no answer was given. Real or not, one thing for sure about your coin is it is unique because of the 伍。Happy treasure hunting.