Featured New Book on Chopmarked Coins

Chopmarked Coins: A History; the silver coins used in China 1600-1935 by Colin James Gullberg (iAsure Group JEAN Publications, June 2014, 187 pages, 8-1/2 x 11, color ill., $40 + S&H). Order from the author Colin Gullberg <chopmarknews@gmail.com>.

For most collectors in most times and places, these were just damaged coins, worth less than unmarked coins in the same grade. For merchant sailor and numismatist, Frank M. Rose, they became a passion. For over 25 years, his 1987 work, Chopmarks, stood alone. Now, it has a worthy companion.

This is a narrative about collecting, a history of economics in China, and an overview of a huge, unexplored area of numismatics. It is the tip of the iceberg.

Gullberg illustrates the history of western silver coins in China with examples from his own collection, the Rose collection, and several other sources such as the British Museum, and Stacks Bowers. Coins are arranged by their initial year of issue. An example from 1848 stands for the 1825 Cap & Rays; the 1867 Chile Peso is illustrated with a coin from 1877. The running narrative closes with necessary warnings about fakes.

This is not a catalog of chopmarks, though many are explained in the text. If you are seeking to identify the chops on your coins against these, you will have to look at a lot of pictures. Some are easy to spot. The number eight is considered lucky and 8 is a chopmark that stands out among the other characters.

This book provides our hobby with a much-needed framework for further study. For the new collector–as Gullberg himself was new only a decade ago–this book will introduce a rich, complex, and compelling world.

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Ordered my copy a few days ago, looking forward to receiving it

 

I'll have to order it .

 

Sounds like a very good read. Thanks for posting this.

 

I will have to add this book to my collection.

 

Any chance you could help me decipher if this is a fake?

 

Neat coins.

 

No, I am sorry but I do not know the US Trade Dollar series well enough to authenticate from a picture. The chopmarks are a whole other area.

 

I am fairly confident the coin is authentic. My concern is whether the chopmarks are authentic.

 

Dunno. I could write a paragraph about each mark but it would still come down to "dunno" without seeing the coin. The large chopmarks are typical for the period, but, there's so much else there, like the faint two-character chop at 2 o'clock obverse. Dunno...

 

That's quite alright, thank you for the input. I'm at the same point and a friend of mine who is quite knowledgeable on chopmarks said the same. For now, it will inhabit my slot for Type Set until I can find a problem-free coin at a decent price.

 

I picked this up as "damaged," but it looks like a chop to me. Not sure, but I bet the book would help! Thanks!

 

I should be getting a copy of the book in Long Beach. Look forward to seeing it.

 

I have a couple of chop marked silver dollars and find them interesting. Since these were used to validate Ag content, I am wondering how those Chinese tested it for content?

 

So can you not get chop marked coins graded as they will only be given a details grade?

 

Sometimes the are graded with a chop mark notation and sometimes not.

 

Which grading company might allow them Anacs?

 

The easy answer is I don't know. Not much is available. This book does have illustrations from a textbook from a shroff school, but that book is in Chinese. My understanding from my own research about the shroffs is that they did a "ring" test. If the coin rang right, it was accepted. You can do this by balancing a coin on one finger and tapping it with a pencil. My understanding is that they did this with one hand: put the coin on a finger and brushed it with another (maybe the thumb), doing that near their ear. You might do a coin a second that way.

 

GD, you are sending me on a research quest to write an article. The touchstone was (and is) for gold, not silver. A touchstone or Lydian stone, is hard, close-grained slate or chert or similar rock. You rub the test piece on it and then wash the streak with acid to remove everything except the gold. The color of the remaining streak tells you the fineness or purity of the gold. That takes some learning and finesse. This is not like testing the pH of your swimming pool.

In the Dark Ages, the use of the stone transmogrified from a TEST to a TRANSMUTATION and the story grew up of a "philosopher's stone" that could (a) tell true gold, hence all truth, from fool's gold, hence all falsehoods, but also (b) change base metals to gold.

The first J. K. Rowling book was titled Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone in the UK; but that was changed to Sorcerer's Stone for the US market, lest any Americans be intimidated by the threat of philosophy. (Americans have less fear of the Devil who was defeated by Daniel Webster and then by a Georgia boy with a fiddle.)

You cannot use a Lydian stone to test silver because acids dissolve silver.