China Republic 10 and 20 Cents (Counterfeit) 1926

The dragon and phoenix design often appears in conjunction with weddings because one meaning of the famous duo is blissful husband and wife relationships. Sure enough, the coin catalogs list this piece with the Pu Yi, last emperor of China, wedding.

Perhaps the dragon and phoenix mean male and female, masculine and feminine, yin and yang, this world and the next, or positive and negative. All in all, it makes for an interesting coin and an interesting topic of conversation.

As to the value of the coin, this is equally mysterious. Several factors strongly influence the value of Chinese coins today. First, China is an emerging economic power on the world scene, so interest in Chinese collectibles is way up. Second, Chinese counterfeiting is rampant in the rare coin business, which directly counteracts the increased collector demand.

Here are some statistics from one of our coin catalogs (Krause and Mishler) about these coins:

10 cents, or 10 fen, or 1 chiao:
18 mm diameter, 2.7 grams
0.061 troy ounces silver
catalog value $30 in average circulated condition

20 cents, or 20 fen, or 2 chiao:
23 mm diameter, 5.2 grams
0.121 troy ounces silver
catalog value $30 in average circulated condition

But wait. The value of these coins is directly proportional to the confidence one has that the coin is genuine and not counterfeit. A coin known to be genuine can command much, much stronger values that those indicated above, easily reach $500 to $1000 in value. The way you can be sure is if the coin is authenticated and encapsulated by a trusted third-party service such as PCGS, NGC, ANACS, or ICG. Services other than these four are suspect.

The coin in our picture comes from a not-to-be-named eBay page. In my personal opinion, the coin looks too good to be true. The strike is reasonably sharp, the surfaces are clean, and the wear is minimal, except on the dragon's head. There is a chance this coin is not genuine, although I certainly cannot tell for sure.

Without guarantee of authenticity, I would not purchase this coin even at low price.
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