# china or japan coin????



## lacolobiger (Apr 8, 2005)

Dug this in town today on an empty lot. Dont know any history about the lot. Seem to be brass or bronze. Just a tad bit bigger than a nickel and half as thin. heres a couple picks. Hope someone can tell me something about it, or steer me in the direction of someone who can!! Thanks in advance. While I'm on here, wheres them t-shirts and ball caps??


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## kumtow (Apr 8, 2005)

It is a Chinese coin


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## IRISH (Apr 8, 2005)

Yep Chinese, they can be dated fairly accurately by the side with the two characters, I don't know what they mean though.
 They are always great to find although they have been found in there millions here in Australia, lost by the Chinese gold diggers.


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## Roger (Apr 8, 2005)

> wheres them t-shirts and ball caps??


 
 They are coming.... []

 I have set them up on CafePress and ordered myself one so that I can inspect the quality.  It should arrive in a few days and if it looks good I will publicize where and how to can get one.


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## Aerated (Apr 8, 2005)

Dead right Irish.
 Having dug a few Chinese miners camps, you can be guarannteed of finding at least one of these coins.They were used in ex-pat Chinese communities for currency.The largest hoard of these Ive heard of was about 400 found in a ginger jar.Apparently they also used them in there gambling games,Which were played in "paka-poo" dens.According to the literature of the days,
 a haven of opium fuelled sin & corruption.There were Chinese communities in most towns associated with goldrushes, id imagine it would have been the same in Australia.
 Do you Aussie folks come across much Chinese items?


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## IRISH (Apr 8, 2005)

We get quite a few Chinese things here,  there where whole goldfields with a vast majority of Chinese diggers on them in the 1850's to 70's era.
 The biggest hoard of cash (the correct name of those coins) found in Oz I'm aware of was 32,000 in the one urn,  I presume it was a big urn [] .


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## Aerated (Apr 8, 2005)

WOW!! 32,000!
  see that and raise you.......2 Tiger whiskys & a floral printed Ginger jar LOL.
 Anyway in NZ in the early 1900's we had a piece of Legislation called the "poll tax".
 It meant basically that any Chinese wishing to Emigrate here had to pay 10 pounds(about $400 NZ dollars, in todays money). This was instigated by one of our Prime Ministers( the hon. Richard J Seddon) a ferverent Racist by todays standards. I was lucky enough to dig on his Original Homestead site.And I think he must have been a Heavy drinker, we found 40!  pint whiskies.(J Mitchell &Co) and 2 aerated water bottles(and about 200 ring seal beers!).
 Just goes to show.......

 Cheers

 Aerated

 Have you ever dug up Opium Paraphenalia?


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## lacolobiger (Apr 8, 2005)

You say they can be dated fairly easely by the design. O.K.!! Now what??? Do you know what the date is or someone who does? How much is face value? what is the collector price?..... Glad to know the t-shirts are closer. Can't wait to see them.  Did you make Ball caps too???


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## Tandy (Apr 9, 2005)

Hi there lacolobiger,
                               Try this website: http://www.calgarycoin.com/reference/china/china8.htm#ching

 First column, bottom coin. Do they match?

 I think that they are the same coin: Emperor HSUAN TSUNG AD 1821-1850


 Cheers, 

 Tandy


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## Tandy (Apr 9, 2005)

By pure coincidence, now its my turn.

 Here is a scanned image of one I dug up yesterday.


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## lacolobiger (Apr 9, 2005)

Congrats on your find Tandy!! And thank you very much for the chineese web site. 1821 to 1850 is the date of the emperors reign, but is that the date of the coin?? Trying to find out when it was minted.  GREAT INFO.


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## IRISH (Apr 10, 2005)

Great web site Tandy [] ,  thanks for posting that although I've now got to go through my Chinese coins and date them all [] .

 Aerated,  I don't have any Opium related stuff (I don't think so anyhow) exept the bottles and many of them where not really opium but cures or what not,  there is a lot of that stuff dug over here though.


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## IRISH (Apr 18, 2005)

I've just been going through a few of the Chinese coins I've detected over the past few years,  the oldest so far is from between 1644 and 1661 [8D] ,  it's amazing that some of these coins where already two hundred years old before the Australian goldrush started then they sat in the Aussie dirt for another 150 years only to get dug up while I was looking for Gold [] .

 Thanks again for that site Rick,  I'm now looking at those funny little cast coins with a whole new respect [] .


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