Any China coin collectors out there?

[confucius]

I just started collecting old China coins recently and made the following observations at a thriving coin collector's market in Guangzhou located near the Ximen Kou post office:

There are coins that appear to be made for use in Kashgar (Xinjiang) that have one or two characters for "Kashi" on the reverse. These Kashgar coins all have slight variations.

I have seen some old coins minted in Sichuan that have Tibetan designs on the reverse.

There are also coins with German words that were minted in Qingdao.

There are so many counterfeit Yuan Shi Kai dollars on the market that nobody seems to take that particular coin seriously any more.

The late Qing dynasty coins are a dime a dozen. I'm more interested in provincial coins from places like Shaanxi, Hunan, and Yunnan provinces and bought one with a neat dragon motif on the reverse.

I also saw a Communist China coin from the pre-Liberation period.

I bought a few old bank notes as well, including denominations from the old Farmer's Bank of China and the Bank of Communications in Shanghai.

I would be interested in hearing from other forum participants who share interest in this hobby. What interesting specimens do you have in your collection?

[marcopolo79]

I have a very small collection of ration coupons issued by the 黑龍江省糧食局 in 1978 that I found in my apartment when I was living in Harbin. I find them fanscinating because A) they illustrate the tremendous changes China has undergone in a period that basically corresponds to my life, and B) even though ration coupons are the most glaring example of economic mismangement, the authorities still managed to put Socialist Realist imagry of industry and progress on the coupons without any apparent notion of irony.

I'm also a big fan of the diminuitive 1 and 2 fen notes that are given at banks and at Wal-Mart.

[Ian_Lee]

I still hoard a lot of "Big Head" Yuan Shih Kai coins.

I don't know lately that there are so much faked coins. But actually the dealers seldom ask for a premium on the Yuan coins over the value of its silver content owing to a glut in the market.

In 1980, when the Hunt brothers of Texas drove the price of silver up to US$12/oz, a lot of Yuan coins were thrown back into the furnaces and melted to silver bars.

I guess a lot ot them are still somewhere in Texas.