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Obverse: 10 cents (1 Chiao)
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Obverse: 10 cents (1 Chiao) | Token is interesting because the English words TEN CENTS are written with the letter upside down and backwards. Any additional information highly appreciated. Please send it to Jim Farr |
| Mar.29, 1998 |
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Obverse: 10 cents (1 Chiao)
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Obverse: 10 cents (1 Chiao) | Token is interesting because the English words TEN CENTS are written with the letter upside down and backwards. Any additional information highly appreciated. Please send it to Jim Farr |
2. Obverse: Same as 1
Reverse: Ling Tai, No.580 Lu Yi Shen Hao (The name of issuer)
The two tokens were both generated from restriking regular issued copper coins from the ROC. On the reverse of the token 1, two characters of Jong Hua are still visible which should be part of its original inscriptions before being restriken. Jong Hua means China, the first two inscriptions of Jong Hua Ming Guo (the Republic of China). Apart from this there are some other small details can be recognized, allow me to ommit them without further explaining them.
Therefore, the two tokens should be from 1912-1949. Both two tokens have two characters of Ling Tai. Ling Tai could be a name of place where the tokens were cast. It means that the two tokens ought to be coming from a same place. As for where is Ling Tai? I can not find the answer from my dictionary, maybe it is a small town or villiage in China.
During Ching and ROC period, there were numberous of local banks in China. They had issued all kind of currency, including tokens made of bamboo sticks, Copper, and a lot of private notes (I have put on some references on Chinese coinage web site) for circulating in their residing areas, though they were not allowed to do so. The two tokens you have, were restriken from the kind of 10-cash copper coins, people then normally were able to exchange 80-90 peices of them for 1 silver dollar. Maybe being short of small change, caused the local banks to issue their own coinage, but it always can be found that they also took great advantages from doing so. In the case of your tokens, there were 8-9 times of profits, even though as they inscribed just for "temporary circulation".