China Empire Dollar (7 Mace 2 Candareens) Fake Until Proven Not...

I'm not sure about that 26.86 weight.
If I have the right coin in my book, it should be 39.5mm dia, 2.5mm thick and 26.7 grams.
So maybe a well worn coin might weigh 26.6 + or - some degree of error in the measure?

I was reluctant to comment about the pictures because I would need pics showing better closer-up details with good focus.
I have a habit of carrying a small super-magnet as a spot check of Chinese coins when visiting coin dealers. Although not fool proof, it can be a sure thing if the coin is made of certain non-silver compositions ( and they very often are). A check for dia-magnetic reactions on a suspended super-magnet is now one of my standard checks.

@JO, yes there is, but some wiley counterfeiters add chopmarks to their creations to make them more convincing.

@MK, yep it certainly could be legit, I was just making the point that having a chop mark isn't a definitive sign of this piece being real. Without XRF, I'm not sure that I'd want to bet one way or another on this coin.

I'd be curious about the very center of the small Manchu characters as well as seeing a better close-up of those characters.

I agree that the denticles do look a bit off and so do the lettering but the colour and wear seems standard for silver. I wonder if not the denticles and lettering were made with lesser quality at that time since I recall having the same "wobbly lettering" on a genuine but smaller Chinese coin from this era (7.2 Candareens). The word I'm primarily looking at is "Province", but other than slightly wobbly placement of the characters, the characters look alike and whole, without obvious casting bubbles.

The weight sounds right to me. Have you tried comparing the ring tone to another silver crown? Not by dropping but a gentle tap just to make a tone to compare with, mostly to confirm the silver.

The date on this Jiangnan coin is 1904. Quite neat.

The technical weight of 7.2 mace should be around 27.2 grams as the weight of 1 mace is around 3.78g. However it was common for the standard silver coin to weigh around 26.7 grams. In provinces where silver was more expensive to procure, Jilin Province in particular - they are known to shave off weight so it was common to see coins as low as 26.2 to 26.5 grams. Those coins were removed from circulation as it was deemed to be underweight / not fulled back by proper silver content.

The weight is definitely on the lower side. I have a heavily damaged piece and it still came at 26.7 grams. However Jiangnan coins were also known to be on the slightly underweight side. At first glance, it looks positive however the chopmarks unfortunately do hurt the value. I guess if it's offered at a reasonable price and you really want a Chinese crown, it wouldn't hurt. They are quite pricey these days. It still doesn't hurt to be on the cautious side as counterfeits are known.



Yes I know it's so heavily damaged - you can't quite tell what it is. But it's a Jiangnan coin dated 1898...

If I had the option to send this coin in to determine if genuine to a 3rd party grading, should I? I will see if we could do that and I would pay for it and if it is good I will take it. Looking at NGC prices seems this coin would be worth if genuine but also the condition is a little less than optimal.