gxseries Posted November 24, 2010 Report Share Posted November 24, 2010 I won this on ebay a while ago and received it recently. I've never felt so strangely when I held this particular "coin": Quoted from the seller: --- What we present here is one of the famous Chinese Silver Dragon Dollars. However the example of this coin we present here is very different and very rare. After the Tian An Men Square massacre in Beijing an organization was formed to assist Chinese exchange students who were stranded in the United States where they had been studying. One of the devices they used to raise money was to counterstamp a few hundred old Chinese Silver Dollars and sell them at a premium. In the center of the counterstamp was an anti-Communist logo and circling that the name of the group. On one side of the coin the lettering was in Chinese and on the other side of the coin the lettering was in English. Some of the coins actually had chop marks which were very traditional in old China as they guaranteed that this was a piece of good silver and that could pass in circulation. With only about 200 of these Counterstamped Chinese Silver Dragon Dollars in existence, these are extremely rare, historically very interesting and it would be very difficult to find one of these coins today. This is a rare opportunity to obtain a rare and interesting coin. It comes complete in the specially printed envelope in which the coins were sold. --- Clearly an Anti-Soviet logo overstruck on a heavily chopmarked Kiang Nan province silver dollar coin. On the envelope as follows: China Freedom Dollar - Support the Federation - Save the students One piece Thank you for your support B.C.S.S.A. A quick google check on BCSSA refers to this site: http://www.bcssa.us/cms/index.php Berkeley Chinese Students and Scholars Association (BCSSA) is a student organization registered at ASUC (Associated Students of the University of California) on Berkeley campus. Quite interesting. Couldn't find any more information. Maybe I should send an email at the Berkeley campus to see anything like this did happen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thedeadpoint Posted November 24, 2010 Report Share Posted November 24, 2010 Congrats, GX! That's quite a story and an even bigger find! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Saor Alba Posted November 24, 2010 Report Share Posted November 24, 2010 Brings back memories Very interesting piece and worthy of a lot more research. I can think of parallels with the overstruck coins, the Anguilla dollars for instance. These could be pretty collectable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
akdrv Posted November 25, 2010 Report Share Posted November 25, 2010 Interesting piece with a story. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheCoinCzar Posted November 28, 2010 Report Share Posted November 28, 2010 Fascinating topic and very interesting coin with a lot of history! I enjoyed reading about it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ccg Posted November 29, 2010 Report Share Posted November 29, 2010 It's too bad that the counterstamped areas weren't filled in with enamel - that would had made it much easier to read. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gxseries Posted November 29, 2010 Author Report Share Posted November 29, 2010 ccg, the chopmarks are actually quite clear - the photo doesn't show it at all since it's a small scan but it's stunning in many sense. Under the overstruck area, you can see the fresh lustre of silver and most of the chopmarks survived the impact. I will try and see if I can get a photo next week. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheCoinCzar Posted December 6, 2010 Report Share Posted December 6, 2010 Do they still counter stamp coins in China? I wouldn't think so now that most coins are not made of silver, but the coin you have featured looks very modern. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ColinG Posted December 10, 2010 Report Share Posted December 10, 2010 Fascinating piece and worthy of much more study. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gxseries Posted December 10, 2010 Author Report Share Posted December 10, 2010 There's another twist to this story which someone on coincommunity took his time to investigate: These coins were stuck not exclusively by the BCSSA, but by small student organizations at universities such as Tsinghua and Beijing University who had students overseas. They were made up to the early 1990s, and were given to some of the students who were overseas or sold to people in Western countries with lots of Chinese students such as the UK and the US. There are no records of how many were made, but it was a small amount by more or less covert operations. The coins that were used were not limited to Empire coins, but also Republic of China silver dollars as well. Link to the discussion: http://www.coincommunity.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=75409 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gxseries Posted December 22, 2010 Author Report Share Posted December 22, 2010 Here's a couple of photos that I took. Not the best since I don't have my standard lighting setup so I had to use flash and get around the problem. Most of the details are there although the color isn't too right. You get the idea. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ccg Posted December 22, 2010 Report Share Posted December 22, 2010 Thanks for the new pics - the undertype is much easier to see as is the c/s Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thedeadpoint Posted December 23, 2010 Report Share Posted December 23, 2010 Wait, so that dragon is really on the coin? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gxseries Posted December 23, 2010 Author Report Share Posted December 23, 2010 thedeadpoint, it would have looked something like this initially: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=200556956493 Neat but it's getting pricy these days. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gxseries Posted September 18, 2011 Author Report Share Posted September 18, 2011 Won something similar except it's over a YSK yuan coin. Better photos of the other two coins: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Art Posted September 18, 2011 Report Share Posted September 18, 2011 Very interesting info. Don't know how I missed this the first time around. Great coins to have in your collection. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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