Topic: How to value these ancient coins?

[digbird]

How do you put a value on these ancient coins? I picked up a few over the years and have found some under the floor of an old log jail house I once owned, that was build over the Chinese part of town. I have some bronze and copper pieces? from the Ching dynasty...is there a guide or text available? How do you distinguish the fakes from the real? Any help would be appreciated.

[dragondollar]

There's few accurate data available online in English about late Qing coins. You should post pictures of your coins here. I cannot help for old cash coins authentification, but I can identify them for you. Surely other people on this board would be able to authentify them.

[dobedo]

Try looking up in JianMingQianBiCiDian (ISBN 7-5325-0790-4) for a quick reference. Good luck.

[poconopenn]

"Illustrated catalog of Chinese Coins (Gold, Silver, Nickel and Aluminum)" by E. Kann is an excellent book (in English)for anyone who is interested in collecting pre-modern Chinese coinage. This book was published in 1954 and was revised and updated in 2006 by Mario L. Sacripante. The book has three volumes. Volume 1 (ISBN 0-923891-18-8)is for Chinese coins up to 1911. Volume 2 (ISBN 0-923891-19-6)is for Chinese Republican silver , nickel and aluminum coins. Volume 3 (ISBN 0-923891-20-X)is for Sinkiang, Tibet and Mongolian coins plus gold, forgery and fantasy coins.

For pre-republican coins, the book in the attached picture is an excellent one (ISBN 7-208-01435-3/K-344)published in 1993.

[digbird]

Thanks for the referrence materials. I'll have to dig them out and get a macro lense for my camera.

How do you detemine value? Is it what the market will bare? Are there rarity scales in these books? Curious is all. Big topic but not much gets discussed about it. Interesting coins none the less. More curio's or are there serious collectors that go after these coins? 

[dragondollar]

For imperial coins (dragon dollars), I like 中国金银币目录 (Illustrated Catalogue of Chinese Gold & Silver Coins) by 林国明 Lin Gwo Ming (ISBN 962-85939-4-3)

This book has good pictures, covers the most important die variations, and include some rough price estimations.

[digbird]

Thanks Dragondollar. Is there any telltale signs or red flags that one can use to tell the difference between the fakes (curio's) and the real ones? What alerts you to maybe a coin is fake? Thanks for the reference book title. cheers

[badon]

Thanks for the referrence materials. I'll have to dig them out and get a macro lense for my camera.

Before you spend a lot of money on new camera equipment, take a look at this:

http://china-mint.info/forum/index.php?topic=834.0

The short version is that the Canon SD940 is the best camera I found for coin photos, and it's only about $150. I'm probably going to make a real article about it eventually.