Need Help With Chinese Cash Coin That Is Overstruck?

Wow...now I'm curious--why was China overstriking coins of Korea? There must be a great story behind that!

There's another example of a Korean 5 fun overstruck with a Chinese design here on the forum; gxseries posted it in this old thread. Right at the end of that thread, gxseries said...

Actually, this overstrike may be a muled die also.

The Chinese characters on the obverse side clearly indicate Shandong (Shantung) Province.

The English on the reverse side seems to have a mix of letters which may include "Kwang-Tung" (Guangdong) Province or another province with a hyphenated name.

It's a little difficult to sort out.

Gary

The Englisdh appears to be "HWANG-TUNG" or "HWANG-GONG" when it should be "SHANG-TUNG" I think that may be a combination of the original Korean letters and the later Chinese letters- there does appear to be part of an "S" under the right side of the "H". There is a Korean character at the left of the possible "H". There were 3 varieties in size of the Korean coin s that provided the understrike. I do not have mine avaiable to check which it is, and how the dsigns would interefere or strenghen the eventual product.
The Korean Reverse has its top flower at 8:00 of the Chinese overstrike.

Agreed with comtemporary counterfeit as well. Knowing that you are dealing with Chinese coins, you REALLY need to know what you are buying. Here's one good example:



If you don't know what you are looking at, here's the description: http://omnicoin.com/viewcoin/989266

There's a bit of argument with some Chinese experts I've written to. Some argue that overstruck coins were struck in private mints, hence unauthorized. Some argue that it's authorized, hence it was legal. Regardless of what the history of the coins are, let's leave it to one side for now.

I've done a bit of research and sum up what I have seen. Most of the Chinese overstruck coins were struck in coastal areas that is near Korea. Hence, you may safely assume that these coins were indeed exported as scrap metal via ship.

The next thing is, you need to know a fair bit of Chinese history before making any further comments. For the past 2000 years, the Chinese mint officers are quite "sly" when it comes down to the cost of making coins. Ideally, coins should have been made with pure copper but when copper prices shot up, the coin alloys get watered down with zinc, tin or antimony. They sure did understand finance especially debts pretty well back then.

Now my real question comes down to this and this can be argued with either direction. Knowing that the economic condition in China was not doing too well in the 1900s, if copper coins were imported as scrap from Korea, wouldn't it have been more profitable to remelt them down and alloyed them with other base metals? For counterfeiters who didn't have access to a smelter, overstriking coins would make sense. For official mints who may be under the pressure to meet quota, this makes sense as well. Either way, I think both scenarios may have happened. Or who knows, it could be something called "mint sport".

Overall, coins of both "genuine" overstrikes as well as contempory counterfeits are still very collectable. I think the original 5 fun coin, Gwangmu 2 which is 1898, is of the most common variety. Who knows, you might have a really rare Korean 5 fun coin that was overstruck to Chinese 10 cash. Rarest date is the 1899 5 fun which commands over 4000+ dollars easily.

gxseries - the "slyness" you mention is also apparent in R.O.C. copper coins. This has actually made quite a headache for me personally, as many of the R.O.C. coins are scarce in brass, but common in copper. Due to the diluted copper alloy, many of them have a yellowish appearance and prove a challenge to identify as copper or brass.
I have a couple examples of these, as well as the over-struck coins, and will try to post pics later today.

Similar sold on ebay.


https://www.ebay.com/itm/CHINA-CHEK....m1438.l2649