I Need Help On How To Collect Chinese Copper Cash

I can tell you price range, affortable types, good reference books, etc easily, but learning how to Identify fakes is a bit harder.

Firstly, buy David Hartill's "Cast Chinese Coins." It is the standard catalogue nowadays, and it can be had for $40 USD or so (57 SGD).

Ban Liangs, Wu Zhus, and Huo Quans are the cheap types for the ancient era (1-5 USD [1.40-7 SGD]). After that, There are a few Tang Dynasty issues that can be had for cheap (same price range). Cheaper still are coins from the Northern Song Dynasty, a nearly-complete set of which would cost less than $60 USD (85 SGD). Finally, a lot of cheap cash comes from the Qing Dynasty.

There are many other issues from many other time periods that can be had for less than 14 SGD, and many more for less than 28 SGD.

Determining fakes is much more complicated, and will come with time as you handle genuine coins. Good practice is to look at Chinese cash on ebay coming from China, and the vast majority of these coins are fakes. You will see powdery patina, lack of a patina (raw brassy color), completely perfect specimens (stay away from these), and many other characteristics.

These sellers I would recommend buying from as they have only sold me genuine coins:

http://chinese-coins. (009) Not Allowed - Auto-Removed.com/Chinese-Cash-Coins-C226991.aspx?sid=22544

http://chinese-coins. (009) Not Allowed - Auto-Removed.com/Search.aspx?k=Mixed&c=226991 (these are lots that have a large variety of coins. I would recommend the 0.5 Kg lot of damaged coins for 8.95 USD as you will get a lot of variety and a lot of coins for cheap. A good starter set and good practice, but not good collection material)

http://www.ebay.com/sch/m.html&pt=L...ttwat&_sop=1 ( lots of variety for relatively cheap)

http://www.ebay.com/sch/tomtangmu/m..._World_Coins

http://www.ebay.com/sch/heping2011/..._World_Coins

http://www.anythinganywhere.com/com...chincash.htm

www.fsrcoin.com


These are sellers to AVOID because they are selling FAKES (good practice too ):

http://www.ebay.com/sch/m.html?_ssn...oin&_sacat=0

http://www.ebay.com/sch/m.html?_ssn...oin&_sacat=0

http://www.ebay.com/sch/lengxue/m.h...H_Complete=1

http://www.ebay.com/sch/best66666/m...LH_PrefLoc=2

Thanks for the tipa typecoin,

@gxseries I am referring to cast copperr cash (the ones with a square hole)