China, Qing Dynasty, "Great Qing Copper Coin" (10 Cash), Dragon Design

Struck between 1906 and 1911, the Great Qing Copper Coin was among the last coinage issued by imperial China. Unlike the square-holed cash coins that had circulated for two thousand years, these were machine-struck on a modern press with no central hole. The obverse carries 大清銅幣, "Great Qing Copper Coin," in large characters, with a small provincial mint mark set in a circle at the center and a Manchu inscription running along the upper rim. The reverse shows a Chinese dragon coiled within a beaded circle, encircled by the English legend "Tai-Ching-Ti-Kuo Copper Coin," an early romanization of the Great Qing Empire.

The coin was the product of a currency reform meant to pull a chaotic monetary system back under central control. Provinces had been striking their own copper coins since 1900, when a mint in Guangzhou began producing round coins without square holes to cope with copper shortages. They proved popular, and by 1906 fifteen bureaus across twelve provinces were issuing their own designs at their own standards. That year the imperial government consolidated twenty-four mints into nine and mandated a single unified design, the Great Qing Copper Coin, in denominations of 2, 5, 10, and 20 wén.

Standardization only went so far. Provincial mints kept their own marks, ten wén pieces were struck in such volume that production was suspended in 1909, and counterfeiters flooded the coastal provinces with imitations, many overstruck on Korean 5 fun coins that still show traces of the original design beneath. The Qing fell in 1911 before the reform was ever finished, making these coins a record of an empire trying, and failing, to modernize in its final years.

Each coin comes with a Certificate of Authenticity.