China Token Or Coin?

Seeker55 I am not an expert in Chinese or Japanese coins by any means. However, this does not look like a monetary issue to me. It appears to be a flat machine strike on a thin planchet. The design is executed in a crude fashion for the technology used to produce it. It could be a medal or token of some sort.

The Dragon symbol is usually seen in the Empire period about 1890-1910 but the strike itself looks relatively new. Could be a strike "out of time" used as a souvenir.

I've done some looking. I've seen none of the characters on this coin-token repeated on any token I've come across. Sure doesn't have the look of a circulating currency. I'm really curious what others have to say.

EDIT: The center character is really close to the Chinese one for Game. Maybe not.

Thanks for the suggestion, and Zeno is a great database for Oriental coins that I only learned about recently. I've used the advanced search tool, putting in the type of metal, weight and/or size and unfortunately haven't found anything on this one, again suggesting that it might be a token rather than a coin.

I can try as the word forms look stylised / archiac. From left, the two words look like Gui Ren or Important Person.

Centre top and bottom looks like Chang Shu or Long Stay.

And right side looks like Tong Tian meaning similar or belonging to the same field ? Either its gibberish or I read them wrong.

chafemasterj, surely you jest. We might want a more expert opinion than mine to chime in.

It's just my stab in the dark at a guess since it's such a oddity.

It would actually be really cool if it was a video area arcade token, maybe for double dragon.

Thank you, chafemasterj! I'm very impressed that you were able to find a match, and get the photo down to size.

There are several dies involved in the type. I would not believe the ebay prices because you can ask for any price. So far no one has traced or attributed the item to any reference book.

This piece could be duplicated rather easily even with dental plastic to create a die pair capable of striking a brass copy. There are other methods for larger batches. Steel dies would cost about $1500 but they might make 100,000 copies in soft brass.

I suspect a copy of a rare original is far more likely.