Counterfeit Chinese Coins

no counterfeiting is not something new.... Numismatic forgery probably early 1920-30 start not too sure. As for Chinese there are many modern fakes, but that doesn't mean there aren't any older fakes its just that the prices of coins have increase a lot for the Chinese market in modern times maybe from 2000 onwards.

what the is GGF?

i see and GF is grand father. :D very use to it being girlfriend that's all ^_^

When it comes to Chinese coins, it is often the case, that the knowledge of LCS proprietors is limited. It would not surprise me if your coins are counterfeit, nor would it surprise me if they were not. Probably worth posting clear pics of each coin here for the opinion of the experts.

The Chinese have contemporarily faked their own cast cash coins over the centuries, and if they were of good metal weight, they would have passed into circulation without any problem.

It becomes a moot point if these coins can also be considered genuine. This category of Chinese cast cash coins can be very difficult to tell apart from genuine official issues. In modern times, I am still not easily able to tell them apart, either.

My defense against this sort of situation is to accept them as genuine, but only pay a very low nominal price for them anyway. In this manner, I used to buy coins of the T'ang Dynasty (AD607-907) for less than 50 Cents each, 30 years ago, when I was actively acquiring a cast cash collection, that now covers all Dynasties and most Emperors. Then, I was using Schjoth as my guide book. I still have it.

Coins of the T'ang Dynasty were made in truly industrial quantities, so even now, I would expect to obtain even genuine examples cheaply.

I heard that in some cases the fake ends up becoming more valuable than the original like the Glico Tenpo.