Dragon Dollars: Real or Fake?
Dragon Dollars. That’s what they call them. Those large, hefty silver dollars with iconic Chinese dragons on the front and collections of Chinese logograms on the back. These coins are very beautiful, highly collectible, extremely valuable, and widely counterfeited. Don’t buy one unless you know exactly what you are doing!
The coin in our picture is from the Chinese province of Chihli (also spelled 'Zhili'), which had existed since medieval China until parts of it were assigned to bordering provinces in 1928, and the remaining portion was renamed the Hebei province.
Pei Yang indicates the mint where the coin was made and is sometimes referred to as the Pei Yang Arsenal mint in Tientsin (Tianjin).
Kuang Hsu is the given name of Chinese emperor Guangxu, who was the tenth emperor of the Qing dynasty, and the ninth Qing emperor to rule over China proper. His reign lasted from 1875 to 1908. The coin dates back to his 22nd year, 1896.
These are valuable coins. The one in our picture sold for $74,000 US dollars during a 2013 auction. We thank Fritz Rudolf Künker GmbH in Osnabrück for releasing their image copyright to CoinQuest. It is a beautiful specimen!
According to DragonDollar.com, close inspection reveals that the dragon has a growth on his forehead, the Chĭ Mù, without which he is unable to ascend to the sky. You can see other Dragon Dollar designs, with descriptions and approximate values, on this CoinQuest page.
Real or Fake? A few weeks ago, a lady named Tonya sent us a picture of her Kuang Hsu dollar. She wanted to know if it was real or fake, and how much it was worth.
Well, if it was real, it would be worth a boatload of money. Sadly, Tonya’s coin is counterfeit, so it is worth zero or close to zero.
In America, we have laws forbidding counterfeiting of collectible coins. In China, there are no such laws, and a large, lucrative, and ubiquitous counterfeiting industry preys on unsuspecting collectors. Tonya is one of its victims.
Under normal circumstances, fake coins are easily detected by seasoned collectors. A collector who has spent many hours carefully inspecting rare coins usually tells, by instinct, if a particular coin is real or fake. But, for “normal” people like you and me — well, maybe not me! — this is not the case. Presented with a slick reproduction of a valuable coin and lured by a price too good to be true, many casual tourists and novice collectors succumb to temptation and buy a fake because it seems like such a good deal. This is a big mistake.
If you are a collector, you should buy a coin because you like it, not because it might be a good deal.
So, how can you tell if a particular coin is genuine or counterfeit? Weight and metallic composition are good starting points. A jeweler can provide both pieces of data, but jewelers are seldom available at the time of purchase.
Looking at the pattern on the coin is also a good method for detecting fakes, but it is not 100 percent reliable. We looked closely at Tonya’s coin by creating a photoshopped composite of her coin next to a known genuine coin. CoinQuest thanks Heritage Auctions for use of their photo of the genuine coin.
Even with a side-by-side look at genuine vs counterfeit, it is not easy to tell which is which. Tonya’s coin is on the bottom of our composite image. Can you see the difference?
There are a few subtle departures in pattern. The counterfeiters probably used a sand casting of a genuine Kuang Hsu dollar to make the fake, so details in the pattern match almost perfectly. One difference is evident to my eye. It is the wavy plume at the tip of the dragon’s tail. The level of detail in that area of the design is too fine to be captured by a casting.
But the real give-away is the overall mushy appearance of the fake. The pattern is not sharp and crisp, as it is in the genuine coin. The lack of fine detail, coupled with a dull and lifeless look, betray the counterfeit.
Don’t buy Dragon Dollars unless you know exactly what you are doing!