7 Mace And 2 Candareens

@Jbuck - Thanks for the welcome :-)

@Albert: Indeed, I'm not a collector of rare or old coins, though I do collect many coins of the .9999 variety - where I very much care about real vs fake !

Meanwhile, I suspected these were fake, but what caught me off guard was the remoteness of where I found them. There wasn't a town for at least 100 miles every direction - smack bang in the middle of the desert so I half suspected they might be genuine given how remote it was. Alas, if they were I might have been tempted to sell them.

Thanks for the advice and check up y'all.

I hope this works. Had this coin for a few years now came from my wife's grandfather's collection it was in a match box with some random coins I'm guessing it's fake finally decided to find out. Thanks for any help in advance

to the Community, Kiwicoins!

I have noticed several of the people posting on this threat got the coins from a grandfather. This makes perfect sense if those grandfathers were service men in WWII. There are stories from the time that US GI's were targeted by locals who sold counterfeit coins for 10 cents each. The GI's knew a silver US dollar coin was worth a buck and many were taken in thinking they were taking advantage of a dumb kid.

Most of these counterfeits are still worth about a dime.

Hi,

Sorry for Another Hu-Peh Province 7 Mace And 2 Candareens Chinese Coin post. I did review many other posts but didn't see any examples matching this coin. I think it's a reproduction/fake/counterfeit because of the HAH on the reverse side (the side without the dragon).

This is my first post on these forums and a new collector, of sorts, so be kind please. I know these are counterfeited a lot.

Thank you in advance for your time.

Weight: 26g/9oz
Edge has ridges
Does not react to magnet
The coin looks more silver than the photos I snapped below.

hello sherwood315

It is always a good practice to start at the beginning, so I will here.

What do you mean by "the edge has ridges"? If you are referring to reeding like you see on modern US coins of 25 cents and above. There are many clues to look for. Most forgers do not have access to a modern press that can apply the edge reeds at the same time that the faces are struck. Forgers normally use a two-step operation. This leaves clues.

I believe I can see that the corners of the coin have been ground away. This is often done to remove the sharp sprues of metal left by the edging die. There have been many descriptions of this process. I would advise you to read other posts on Chinese forgeries.

You can also do a simple density test if you have a scale that reads to 0.1 gram accurately. Weigh the coin in air first. Then suspend the coin in water and see how much weight is lost. The weight lost in grams is the volume of the coin in cubic centimeters. Divide the weight in air by the volume and the result is the density of the coin. It should be 10.3. That is the best and simplest test to perform.

This is fun and I'm looking forward to investigating these other coins I have.

@swamperbob - yes, I mean the reeding. It clearly looks to me like the reeding is not rounded and instead straight and the edges have been filed.



Also, I ran the REVERSE side image through Google lens and it translated the Chinese which shows "Nanjiang" instead of "Hu-Peh"

I'll have ago ... the coin weighs bang on 27 grams 39mm across .. was found taped down in an old photo album with 3 others all different Chinese dollars .. that's why it has a band across the coin , has a few chop marks and not sure if there's a die error mark with red arrows .. thanks