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 Replies: 34 / Views: 28,413 |
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Valued Member
 United Kingdom
129 Posts |
A 'favourite' fake - the Yuan Shikai 1914 Bank of China specimen notes. These have serious flaws but have appeared for years and often sell. First image: a genuine example of the 1 Yuan specimen  Second image: one of the numerous fakes, offered on an auction site. It seems to be a copy of a copy in that the paper shows numerous silk threads that a) never appeared in the original note (or any ABNCo printed banknotes), and b) these silk threads are as much printed on as the rest of the design as can be seen in the top margin, which shows a doubling effect where the note has been incompetantly edited for printing. The funniest flaw however is that though the circles of the punch holes can be seen; they havent actually been punched through!  |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1812 Posts |
Here in the good old U.S.of A. the nice folks of China believe that everything was made at Carson City and they seem to add CC on their handy work... Do the Notes have a CC ptinted on them...
(sorry, I couldn't resist)
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Valued Member
United Kingdom
129 Posts |
Broken-Coin - I think you can be forgiven!
Good point though that Chinese forgers are making coin collectors lives a nightmare. No CC's here! At least that's one way of finding them out. Some Chinese forged coins I've comes across are really good. Too good.
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Valued Member
United Kingdom
129 Posts |
Another one of the key fakes that crops up alot. I've noticed that the sellers often dont post pictures of the back, and finally having seen it, I know why. The note is a complete fantasy. When I first wrote this I stated that there was no such thing as the National Bank of China, which was an error! It certainly wasn't a 'central bank' and there doesn't seem to be much information for it; it's note issue was very limited to six notes (P511-516). This note is clearly modelled on the '1921' National Bank issues. The vignette either side of the portrait is taken from a Central Bank of China issue of 1948 (already well used). The portrait of Dr Sun Yatsen is taken from a 1940's Japanese 'puppet' bank issue (Central Reserve Bank of China). (I had put that the earliest use of any Sun Yatsen portrait was 1923 however the above mentioned National Bank issues seem to have been the first). Finally of course, notes in such denominations as high as $50,000 or Yuan did not appear until the late 1940s.   A genuine (?) National Bank of China note:  Edited by xavierz27
06/22/2012 11:06 am
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Valued Member
United Kingdom
129 Posts |
Last for today: three fantasy notes, at least one of which has only recently appeared. First note: what looks like a small commercial or exchange note type, and emblazoned with the Temple of Heaven at Beijing. Other than the 'off' appearance of the Chinese characters, there's not too much to be said for this. It's one of the better attempts perhaps.  Second note: 1931 5 Yuan - appears to be an early communist issue, and borrows the soldier vignette from a genuine note, but is again a fraud. Anything resembling this type of note didn't appear as early as 1931.  The third note is a mix of elements - The Xinluhang Bank never existed and the note is clearly taking the style of late provincial issues. The vignette on the front has been taken from the 1 & 5 cents of the Amoy Industrial Bank and reversed, and the building depicted on the back is the former National Assembly Hall at Nanking (Nanjing), taken from Central Bank of China issues of 1948. And no such note denomination would have been expressed as '100 cts' by 1949.  |
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Valued Member
United Kingdom
129 Posts |
This note is a good example on two fronts. It is a forgery of a 1945 5 Yuan of the Central Bank of China for the North Eastern Provinces (former Manchuria/Manchukuo). The denominations from 1 to 50 Yuan of this series are scarce and inevitably far more expensive than the higher denomination notes, and the original notes lack security features and are not printed to the highest standards of banknote production so make a natural choice for fakery. So firstly be wary when (if) buying these but secondly this specific fake is a good example of a giveaway sign to look for when buying banknotes, especially on-line. This is the brown stain line which runs at a diagonal across the note, and joins two other diagonal lines which are at right angles to it, at each end. This type of diagonal stain is found on many aged fakes and my guess is that a group of fakes have been left soaking in tea or some similar 'age' staining agent, and one of the other notes has left a slight after image of its outer edge stained on to this.  |
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Valued Member
United Kingdom
129 Posts |
This next example is quite a well known fake/forgery type. The Bureau of Engraving & Printing Peking, produced a series of notes (mostly if not all unissued) depicting Prince Chun and a dragon. Versions of these notes were printed titled for the Bureau itself, the Ta Ching Bank and some type of exchange note. The adapted designs were later reused by the Japanese for the early puppet Federal Reserve Bank of China issues. There are modern dot matrix printed copies of these notes however the most common examples seem to be of the type below. Poorer quality printing than the original notes, possibly lithograph printing? The examples that I've seen have 'Sight Banknote' on the back, which never appeared on the original notes and may have been placed there to distinguish them. I'm not sure what the origin of these is, they may have been printed as souvenirs and may have some age themselves? There is also the possibility that these fakes have themselves been faked! Some online examples appear suspicously as newly printed copies.   |
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Valued Member
United States
303 Posts |
Hi Xavierz27, great topic on it. I saw one note many years ago on ebay that had some random letters and characters accidentally printed on the fake note. Probably the printer didn't recognize the Chinese and printed random stuff out. Quote:
Supposedly a 25,000 customs gold units - these scarce horizontal notes only came as a 100 and 500. Amazingly I've seen these sell - despite the flawed reverse which says 'twenty five thousand' but is numbered as 250,000! It is correct on the fake banknote. 貳拾伍萬" is 250，000。 貳萬伍仟" would be 25，000。 They make fantasies, but at least they get their numbers correct  . |
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Valued Member
United States
303 Posts |
 Here it is...I thought it was funny that they still try to sell it on ebay. |
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Valued Member
United Kingdom
129 Posts |
Thanks for posting - that example should certainly get some kind of award, it's about the worst I've seen. I may have seen a green version some years back but I dont remember it being that bad. Perhaps I surpressed the memory! And you right - its funny that they try and sell anything this bad. Many of the fake or fantasy notes (better by comparison) are currently being sold on ebay by a Chinese seller who is stating that they are valueless copies so it is worth viewing his listings to get a further idea of whats out there. Search using the word 'nominal'. |
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Valued Member
United Kingdom
129 Posts |
On a more positive note perhaps (?), not all forgeries are 'bad news'. Albeit rarely, but sometimes period forgeries appear. These are fascinating examples of social or military history and are in some cases more valuable historically (and yes, commercially) than the genuine notes. Occasionally for example, lithographed forgeries of the Bank of Communications Shanghai 5 and 10 Yuan notes appear (1933 issues of the series of 1914). The genuine notes are the most common of the BOC issues. From what I've read (what little there is) some of the forgeries of these and other Nationalist banknotes were printed by the Japanese during the war, and other were produced by criminal gangs in Shanghai and Tientsin (Tianjin). The example that I have of the 5 Yuan has been circulated, is litho printed on bond paper. I only recently noticed that most of the word 'bond' is discernable on one of the vertical margins! Period forgeries:     Edited by xavierz27
06/26/2012 11:45 am
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1812 Posts |
A few years back Coin World (Magazine) printed a 2 part article with with a coin counterfeiter from China, and in the article he mentione that his reproduction factory in China offers different price teir's for their counterfeit USA Coins... The lowest price coins are easy to spot, where-as the top price teir counterfeits are so well done the TPG Services notes how they were quite deceptive and could fool a number of long time dealers... If memory serves, included in the article was a woman who went around a bourse floor showing the (fake) coins to Dealers, and quite a few were fooled into thinking that they were real, and those that did were told that they were the new high quality copies from China... |
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Valued Member
United Kingdom
129 Posts |
I bet they wished the ground would open up and swallow them when they found out. But then if the fakes are that good (and the better one's do seem to be), it's not surprising. Sounds like a fascinating article.
Of Chinese coins: I bought a trio of large holed bronze/copper coins of the type that used to be produced in the 19th century, large cash coins or medallions, for not much money and I'm certain they are fake but they look very authentic. It's worrying as I've seen such coins go to unsuspecting buyers. It's hard to know if you can trust anything in the way of coins! And certain types of banknotes - some of the fakes of early Peoples Bank of China notes are so convincing that I've decided to avoid buying any unless especially cheap and from a reputable source. And even then you dont know - even major museums can be fooled by fakes of all kinds.
At some point you have to hope for best I suppose!
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Pillar of the Community
United Kingdom
2624 Posts |
Thanks for the very informative posts.
I think that Chinese and Indian currencies are a hot buy for the future but because of the amount of fakes around I just can't bring myself to go near them.
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Valued Member
United Kingdom
129 Posts |
Hi all, haven't been on here for a while but thought I'd mention a current horror on e-bay.
The US seller tomato009 has a whole string of auctions of fake Chinese notes that are currently ending as I write this. And we're not talking a few pounds or dollars either. I have just seen one of his fakes - a Pei Yang Bank of Tientsin, I think - sell for over $1,000 US.
Another one supposedly of the Ta Ching Bank is about to end at over $220. Not even a fake but one of the poor fantasy types.
And it is impossible to report these fakes to e-bay! Why am I not really surprised.
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Replies: 34 / Views: 28,413 |
First Page
Posted 06/21/2012 12:39 pm
