Identification Of Chinese Cash Coin (Id: Qianlong Emperor (1735-1796))

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Author	Replies: 3 / Views: 529
DOCC Pillar of the Community United States 1502 Posts	Posted 07/30/2025 09:16 am Hoping to get some help identifying this cash coin found metal detecting (these are post restoration images). 4.23 grams 21.62 mm I have had no luck with reverse image search but have come close (but not exact) with Numista (https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pi...141526.html) Any other reference points for researching cash coins that the fine folks on CCF use? The site this was found at was an active railroad camp from around 1880. I swing a metal detector and have a knack for finding dirty old coins. Dirt coin restoration projects - https://www.prodetecting.com/restorations Dirt coin restoration blog - https://www.prodetecting.com/blog/ccaw Dirt coin dig videos - https://www.youtube.com/@prodetecting Report this Post to the Staff

Sap Moderator Australia 16809 Posts	Posted 07/30/2025 10:52 am Easy. It is indeed Chinese, from the reign of the Qianlong emperor (1735-1796). The bottom picture is the obverse, and it's upside-down. Chinese cash coins don't have dates, but can be very broadly classified into time periods based on calligraphy. On your coin, the character "Qian" has the component in its bottom-right quarter in the shape of a hook, rather than a "Z"; this is quite distinctive of the later period of the reign. On the reverse, the Manchu mint-name is Zhili province; according to the Harthill catalogue, Zhili-minted hook-qian coins date from 1788 to 1796. Qianlong cash coins are very commonly encountered in Chinese expatriate communities such as the goldfields of North America, Australia and New Zealand; they were after all amongst the most abundant coins ever made on the planet (your particular mint has surviving records showing annual mintages of between 45 million and 78 million coins per year - and that was just one of the smaller mints out of dozens of mints operating throughout the Empire) and large numbers of them would have been brought with the Chinese emigrants for use in traditional rituals rather than for use as actual money. For a very general guide for Qing Dynasty Chinese cash coins, the Calgary Coin Club cash coins page is useful for helping identify emperor and mint, though they do use the old-fashioned Wade-Giles way of transposing Chinese characters into English (so there, the emperor is named as "Ch'ien-lung" and the province is "Chihli"). The website doesn't mention the hook-versus-Z variety transition. For more specific searching for any kind of Asian or Islamic coinage, the zeno.ru database is best, though it's not much use if you don't really know what you're looking for. Here's the zeno.ru collection of coins of your exact type: https://www.zeno.ru/showgallery.php?cat=12971 Don't say "infinitely" when you mean "very"; otherwise, you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite. - C. S. Lewis Report this Post to the Staff
Spence Moderator United States 34397 Posts	Posted 07/30/2025 11:02 am Looks like Emperor Gao Zong (Qing Dynasty; 1736-1795) to me. The second pic is upside down, but the character on the left at the top (when rotated) is hook-like, so that means 1770s or 1780s I think. If you get very many of these things, David Hartill's, "Cast Chinese Cash" is a wonderful resource. Added: looks like @sap beat me to the punch, both in terms of timing and detail provided. "If you climb a good tree, you get a push." -----Ghanaian proverb "The danger we all now face is distinguishing between what is authentic and what is performed." -----King Adz Report this Post to the Staff
DOCC Pillar of the Community United States 1502 Posts	Posted 07/30/2025 11:13 am Awesome info SAP & Spence - thanks so much. Found 6 of them at this site, have yet to restore remainder but I imagine they might all be the same. I swing a metal detector and have a knack for finding dirty old coins. Dirt coin restoration projects - https://www.prodetecting.com/restorations Dirt coin restoration blog - https://www.prodetecting.com/blog/ccaw Dirt coin dig videos - https://www.youtube.com/@prodetecting Report this Post to the Staff
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