Topic: Great Wall 1984 3.3 oz. Silver Medal - Two Versions

[mmissinglink]

I see what you mean about the character...on my coin, the lines are dashed....is that the difference you refer to? Is there a character in Chinese that actually has dashed instead of full lines or is this some sort of false character?

[mmissinglink]

Why might there be so many variations? Was this done on purpose by the minter to try out different designs or is my medal possibly a fake? I did pay back in the 1980's very little for the medal....maybe $100 or so. Maybe the old Chinese coin dealer in Flushing sold me a fake but that doesn't bother me because it is still a beautiful medal even if it is fake. But then again, the box that came with the medal....the inside is made concave perfectly to fit the medal. All of this is very interesting to piece together the history of the Great Wall medals

[mmissinglink]

Okay, I did check the close-up pictures and I do see that the character on my medal does match the character on several of the other medals pictured. So apparently it must be a real Chinese character that just happens to be a little different than the one which has a solid line instead or dashed or segmented lines.

[mmissinglink]

Do you recommend that I contact a company like NGC to get my medal authenticated and graded or should I wait till there is more information known about the different variations of this medal?

[poconopenn]

Why might there be so many variations? Was this done on purpose by the minter to try out different designs or is my medal possibly a fake? I did pay back in the 1980's very little for the medal....maybe $100 or so. Maybe the old Chinese coin dealer in Flushing sold me a fake but that doesn't bother me because it is still a beautiful medal even if it is fake. But then again, the box that came with the medal....the inside is made concave perfectly to fit the medal. All of this is very interesting to piece together the history of the Great Wall medals

You medal has a correct weight. If this is a fake plated medal, you will see inside metal after polished. If you bought in mid-1980, there was no fake medal or coin at that time. The large size silver coin is difficult to make. The production die has to rework constantly. Since this coin misspelled the heroes, China mint had to make a new die for correct spelling. $100 for this medal in 1980's was not cheap.  The 1983 1 oz silver panda was about $35 and 5 oz 1987 silver panda was about $60 at that time.

Your coin was polished. It will not considered as UNC and may be AU details.

[mmissinglink]

Is there a price guide of some sort for these medals? I am curious how much value did I lose by polishing? Is an AU Great Wall medal worth the cost of grading even? I mean, if it costs $200 to grade and an AU coin like this is only worth $200, then it's not even worth grading, right?  I wish I would have known a few years ago what I know today because of course I would not have polished the medal then. That really sucks that I did not know that several years ago.

[Hippanda]

Missinglink-
When were your photos taken?

[pandamonium]

Your medal gets 5 of 6 possible stars from Mr Ge.  That is one expensive medal but the polishing may have dropped value greatly.  It will be interesting to see what price you are offered.  Why not email CCF member Konajim?..................

[mmissinglink]

The pics of the polished medal were taken about 7 years ago. The other 2 were taken a few days ago.

[mmissinglink]

I'm new here and I looked around to see how I can "CCF" another member but I am unsure how this is done. I don't even know what CCF means....I'm assuming it's a personal way of contacting a member?

[NBM]

CCF = China Coin Forum
KonaJim's profile has the info you need.

http://china-mint.info/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=8529

[mmissinglink]

The pictures I took of the coin after I polished it were taken about 7 or 8 years ago with a film camera and so all these images here are scans of the developed film pictures from about 8 years ago. As you can see I shifted the light source a little in each picture so that certain details on the coin that are not as clkear in one shot become more clear in the other.

[mmissinglink]

Some of the images have a piece of hair....that's not a scratch

[pandamonium]

Very rare and outstanding medal.  Konajim sold one or 2 of these last year, I think.  Thats why I mentioned him as he may be able to provide price............

[dynamike51]

Is there a price guide of some sort for these medals? I am curious how much value did I lose by polishing? Is an AU Great Wall medal worth the cost of grading even? I mean, if it costs $200 to grade and an AU coin like this is only worth $200, then it's not even worth grading, right?  I wish I would have known a few years ago what I know today because of course I would not have polished the medal then. That really sucks that I did not know that several years ago.

mmissinglink:

1) I don't think it's going to cost you $200 to grade that coin.  Join NGC as a member, then send it in to grade. With so much confusion, it will be of great help to you to have it certified - whether you sell it or not. Poconopenn is the most reliable expert on Chinese coins here. If he says it's genuine, there's 99.99% chance you will have no problem.
2) You won't have to worry the medal (if genuine) will only fetch $200. Even if it grades low because it's polished, you will get a lot more than $200.