Ancient Chinese Key shaped coin?

I've seen these before. They are cool looking. They are ancient, and key shaped.

What are they called exactly?

 

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Well 99.9% of any you will ever see are fakes, and that number is way too low for Ebay. They made them, but they are prohibitively rare. There were a number of unique shapes to early chinese coins, including large and small spades, knives, key shaped, imitation cowries, etc. Early Chinese used to be harder to locate and identify as genuine, now its nearly impossible.

 

Although key shaped most collectors still refer to them as knife money or knife coins. They were cast during the Hsin(Wang Mang) dynasty in China from about AD7 to AD23.
Follow Medoraman's advice, as it is no longer possible to distinguish an authentic piece from a well done fake.

 

You are correct sir, I forgot to post info specific to this coin. Wang Mang was a usurper to the Han dynasty, and struck many cool coins all in attempts to bankrupt the rich. He was a pretty modern, socialist type of leader, so of course was beheaded.

The coin you list is the lower value one, the higher value one was inlaid with gold. The gold inlay coin even 20 years ago was heavily faked and almost impossible to buy an authentic piece, but now the lower value one, since its a "cool" shape, is massively faked. I would guess there are 1000 good fake today for every authentic piece. Mine I bought from a 1960's collection that I acquired about 2000, so I am relatively sure mine is authentic.

Chris

 

i would not buy anything chinese

 

unless ngc or pcgs certified

 

For ancient cash there is still out there a ton of interesting, inexpensive pieces if you know where to buy. I will not stop buying, you simply need to educate yourself about dealers and the coins. I am more nervous about modern chinese pieces than cash.

 

Hey. I found a ancient Chinese key and coin, they are in a glass picture fame with Chinese writing in the background. Its probably fake but it doesn't hurt to find out. I just want to know what the words on the back mean.

 

Hello Jess. Welcome to CoinTalk. If you post photos of the key, coin, and Chinese writing, then someone who is knowledgeable about such things, may be able to give you some info about them. If the coin has a square hole, then it may be best to post the photos on this forum, the CoinTalk "Ancient Coins" forum, or perhaps even better, in the CoinTalk "World Coins" forum. If the coin doesn't have a square hole, then I recommend the CoinTalk "World Coins" forum for sure.

 

Hi Can I ask you to give an opinion on my keys? Found this set at an estate sale in NC. Curious as to what they are.

 

https://photos.app.goo.gl/aCdS84RVg9b5Qaco6

 

Would you share a picture of an authentic exemplar? I have 4 boxes of Chinese coins, which I got for free and which I can't identify. Among them is this piece below. I have no clue whether it is genuine or not.

If it is modern, the forgers at least took the trouble of producing a rather convincing surface, complete with encrustations of different form and colour. In this sense it looks a lot more convincing than the OP coin, but still, it may just be a better fake:

 

The Chinese can make anything. Fake eggs, fake meat, so fake coins are child’s play to them.

that being said, there’s a rule of thumb: never buy an uncertified Chinese coin of any sort.

 

A search on acsearch produces well over 20 of these Wang Mang key coins, which at least have been sold as genuine.

I'm no expert, but mine looks more convincingly old than this one for example:

https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=2586359

They even come in bunches like this one:

https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=5822030

 

That is the question, can anyone actually certify these coins, i.e. can someone determine with certainty if they are genuine or not.

 

Good point. Answer, I believe, is no. The Chinese are so talented that they can often fool the TPGs.

The benefit of something like NGC, for example, is that the odds of a fake is lower, but not zero.

 

They regularly take fakes and put them in cattle dung etc for a year or two to develop crusty toning to fool buyers. Very common to look like this.

Just saying crustiness says nothing about authenticity for ancient Chinese coins.

Provenence helps a lot, or the opinion of people like Frank Robinson or Scott Semans.

 

Something really depressing about that statement .

Chinese spade money is a unique, interesting part of coin history. Really sad that appreciation for an entire genre of artifact/collectable gets destroyed due to morally unscrupulous people. Sad thing is, I'd bet that a lot of other genres probably fall into this category as well, we just don't realize the extent of the fakes. People really suck sometimes!

 

Someone who puts fake coins in cow dung for years would probably not hesitate to fake a provenance either. I think in this case provenance counts for nothing unless it is attested through serious scholarly books.