China Sungarei Fantasy Tael (Counterfeit)

The misspelling of the word 'tael' as 'teal', along with the crudely rendered dragon and fuzzy surfaces, are a sure giveaway of a counterfeit coin, politely called a fantasy coin.

The expert Gary over at CoinCommunity has this to say:

'The only Chinese coins which have 'sungarei' in the inscription were struck in Xinjiang Province in 1897 and only in denominations of '7 mace 2 candareens', '4 mace', '2 mace' and '1 mace'.

[Note: We have a page on these sungarei coins at this link (Click Here). Genuine coins are extremely valuable.]

No coins with 'sungarei' and a denomination of '1 teal' were ever produced. The '1 teal' is of course a misspelling of '1 tael'.

For this reason alone, the coin can be considered a fake, a counterfeit or, somewhat a stretch, a 'fantasy' coin.

Additionally, your coin was not even 'made' in Xinjiang Province if you can believe what the inscription on the coin says. The Chinese side of the coin states that it was made in Heilongjiang Province, but the problem is that there was no mint in Heilongjiang Province at the time.

Chinese catalogs include some pattern coins with the inscription indicating that they were made in Heilongjiang, but documentation shows that these coins were produced by another provincial mint commissioned by Heilongjiang.

These Heilongjiang pattern coins are very rare and were only produced in denominations of '7 mace 2 candareens' and '3 mace 6 candareens'.

No pattern coins were struck with the denomination '1 tael' (1 teal).

Also, these rare Heilongjiang pattern coins were only struck in brass. None were made of silver.

Therefore, your coin could not possibly be authentic since no such coin ever existed.

All of the above information is confirmed by several authoritative Chinese coin catalogs published in China which I referenced.

A search of Chinese language websites shows that there are actually a variety of these '1 teal sungarei' coins available on the market including those not only made in Heilongjiang Province but also Henan Province, Anhui Province, etc. They all can be bought for the equivalent of a dollar or two each.

Gary'
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