These Chinese square holed coins,they are many 100 years old.it has four chinese characters. They are ancient coins. We have plenty of them in the markets. It's very simple to make them fake!Because it's not detailed it is very SIMPLE coin. I want to buy one,I see a lot in the coinshops,but I'm afraid to buy the wrong one. I need cointalk members' help to make me know how to recognize the real & the fake. How to get the right coin? Hobo,rescue me, please move my thread to World & Ancient Coins. I wrongly posted hereon Coin Chat.
I could be wrong, but I think I see these all the time in foreign bins for 10-20 cents. If this is the same coin I'm thinking of, I wouldn't imagine there are too many counterfeits out there.
Yes, and there are still numerous counterfeits. That's part of the reason they're in the foreign bins for 10 cents.
Many of them contemporary counterfeits intended to circulate. Countless varieties of these coins have been cast in copper and bronze (and occasionally iron) for more than 1,000 years, well into the 20th Century, in China, Japan, Korea and Annam (now Viet Nam). There are also some struck varieties.
It looks like a Sheng Tsu 1662-1722 coin, but it also looks too good to be almost 300 years old. Go to this site and follow the "round coin" > "four character" > (blue link in first paragraph), scroll down to Sheng Tsu to compare yours. http://www.calgarycoin.com/reference/china/chinaid.htm
I would put this one down definitely as a fake. All the characters differ from the genuine coins in my collection (over 20 varieties of Kang Xi Tong Bao). I am particularly suspicious of the feet of the Bao - they should connect to the other part of the bei. the head of the Tong is also very suspect. The coin looks almost as if it has been struck rather than cast. No Qing coins were struck until late 1800s, and this one dates from 1662-1722. Can you post a photo of the reverse?
This coin is popularly known as the "lohan coin" or "arhat money'. It is usually attributed to a special casting to mark the 60th birthday of Emperor Sheng Zu (Kang Xi) in the year 1713. It is not at all rare and is only slightly more scarce than the more common varieties of Kang Xi Tong Bao coins cast by the Board of Revenue in Peking. These coins were cast from bronze with a golden color. Also, some of the characters are written in a very distinctive style. For example, the "tong" character on the right only has one dot instead of two. The "xi" character at the bottom is also written in a unique way. I actually own this particular coin. It is displayed on my educational and non-commercial website dedicated to Ancient Chinese Charms. There are some very interesting stories and traditions associated with this coin which I discuss on the web page Ancient Chinese Coins with Charm Features. If you have an interest, please feel welcome to visit the website. This particular coin is discussed as "An Old Chinese Coin with the Powers of a Charm" near the bottom of the page.
The OP's coin is indeed either the 1713 Lohan version, or an exact copy. If it is genuine it is in extremely good condition for being 294 years old. If it's real it's worth about $5. A copy certainly wouldn't be worth any more than that. The central square hole looks a bit too square and clean.
