Hong Kong 1923 1 cent over China 10 cash?

Started by gxseries, June 24, 2012, 12:14:40 PM

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gxseries

This is a coin that I paid quite high but thought this looks quite unusual.



In between the letter "Hong" Kong and "One" cent, you can see the letter "ten" which looks like a cross.

This exists on the a former Chinese 10 cash coin struck in 1905, 1906.



I am not aware of such coins overstruck on 10 cash coin - were these struck in China or in the UK? Got a feeling that it could be a contempory counterfeit.

andyg

the small Bronze coins for Hong Kong were struck by the Royal Mint in the UK and shipped out to the colony....

http://www.hkartclub.com/coin/hkcoin/hkcoinhisteng.html
always willing to trade modern UK coins for modern coins from elsewhere....

Figleaf

From that site:

Quote1866 saw the next and most important landmark in the history of Hong Kong's coinage with the opening in the Colony of a branch of the Royal Mint in Causeway Bay. A very auspicious start was made towards this end in 1866 when a range of five silver coins was struck, namely ten cents, twenty cents, half dollar and one dollar. These five silver coins, together with the bronze cent and mil struck in England, meant that during 1866 seven different denominations were issued simultaneously. However, it is a fact that the Hong Kong dollar bearing the effigy of Queen Victoria was not popular with the Chinese, who preferred the more familiar Mexican dollar. As a result, after only two years of operation the mint closed in 1868, and its machinery was dismantled and sold to Japan where it was installed in a mint at Osaka.

Which glosses over the fact that the HK mint had been intended to take over supplying coins to the empire. Colonial flat-footedness led to patterns sruck in HK, showing Victoria as empress of China, which did not sit well with the Chinese emperor of China, so the plans fell as flat as the HK mint.

However, this story is usually presented as a silver half dollar and dollar affair. This wonderful overstrike seems to suggest that a HK cent was equal in size/weight to a 10 cash piece. Very interesting!

Peter
An unidentified coin is a piece of metal. An identified coin is a piece of history.

Chinasmith

As someone pointed out, the Hong Kong cents were made in England, either at the Royal Mint or at the Heaton Mint. Extremely unlikely they would have Chinese coins laying about to serve as planchets. The more likely explanation is that this coin was privately made in China or Hong Kong by buying up discounted Chinese 10 cash and restriking them into Hong Kong coins with a fake die.
Researcher on coins, paper money and tokens of China.