Ep.12 - Crazy Rich Asian COINS with Anthony Hui #numismatics #coin #coincollecting #money #china
All right, before we begin today, folks, I would love to thank some of the people that are helpful in making this podcast a reality, not just only the amazing guests that I've had over the last 11 episodes. Today is going be the twelfth episode of the Capgecoins Podcast. But I also want to thank those people out there that are helping out with making comments on these videos. So I'm receiving a lot of interesting comments, a lot of really heartfelt comments, a lot of warm comments. I just want to say thank you to all of you out there who are doing that.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Those help the kind of YouTube algorithm select my channel and push it forward. So I love making these videos. I love educating people about Numismatics as well as just giving you some tools in your toolkit, you know, to get out there and get into the coin marketplace and to make some money or to just build a collection or whatever it is that kind of excites you. I love doing this stuff, but I absolutely need your support and your encouragement. At this point, all I really am asking you to do is hit that like button, please subscribe if you haven't already and share this episode, you know, on your social media or with your friends network, other people that might be interested in this particular type of content.
Tony Gryckiewicz:So with that being said, okay. So for today we have an episode where we are going to be talking about Jean Guo Yingbi. Is that did I get it right?
Anthony Hui:That is correct.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Yep. Okay. Alright. So we have Anthony Hoy. Anthony, I I know him from Instagram primarily.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Anthony has reached out from time to time. He do always asking me, hey, Tony. Did you have you gotten any new Asian coins? Anthony is one of our true collectors. He he he's been collecting for a number of years.
Tony Gryckiewicz:He's very excited about Numismatics and about Chinese coins specifically. I met Anthony for the first time, not just through Instagram. We actually did a deal in Charlotte, North Carolina, and we met up at that that Starbucks. And this guy comes in, and we were there to do a trade for, think I had a fat man dollar and you had a taller and you brought like all this documentation and all of these like auction catalogs and all this documentation to show me about the fat man I'm sorry, about the taller that I was going to be purchasing that day. And I remember that and then I gave you a ride home afterward.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Yeah, remember. Yeah. So anyways, welcome to the Cabbage Coins Podcast. Tell everyone a little bit about yourself and what got you into coin collecting and, know, your your a little bit about about your background.
Anthony Hui:Yeah. For sure. I mean, thanks for having me on, Tony. I mean, I've never done an actual interview, of course recorded and online. But yeah, I'm Anthony Hoy.
Anthony Hui:I'm 22 years old. I graduated from college last year from UNC Chapel Hill, and I've been collecting coins since probably 2011 or 2012. Actually started with some American coins with my local coin shop here in Charlotte, North Carolina, so when I was probably in second grade or so. But then I've kind of pivoted to Chinese coins maybe around fifth grade when I found a memento dollar with a figure named Doctor. Sun Yat Sen.
Anthony Hui:Coin collecting has kind of really tagged along with me throughout middle school and high school and of course college, and I've always liked history and especially Chinese history. And I guess lastly, more about myself. I mean, I'm half Chinese, half Korean. You know, I'm from Hong Kong and South Korea, so I've always liked Asian numismatics and specifically, you know, Ching and Republican coinage, which are obviously machine struck and of course will be the topic of this interview. But I've always thought those are really cool because it really encapsulates like, let's say military history and victories and defeats and of course the culture and the economics behind it.
Anthony Hui:And of course the finance as well for these monetary history artifacts and stuff.
Tony Gryckiewicz:So Chinese coins have kind of exploded recently. This is why I want to do this episode is because there's a lot of opportunity in my opinion of Chinese coins. You walk into a coin show, you, I believe if you're like me, you know, one of the reasons why you enjoy coin shows is you walk in and there's this kind of sense of opportunity. There's a lot of things on the floor. It's just up to you to go hunt for them and you potentially can find a little diamond in the rough and you can, you know, get it graded and maybe make some money or have it as part of your collection or whatever.
Tony Gryckiewicz:You can kind of find that thing that's maybe a little bit undervalued potentially within that particular marketplace right there at that show. And when it comes to Chinese coins, you know, in The United States, you know, unless you're walking into a show or talking to a dealer that just primarily does Chinese coins or Asian coins, you may be able to find some really, really great diamonds in the rough. According to, you know, from your perspective, why have Chinese coins exploded in popularity over the last five years? What's driving the demand?
Anthony Hui:Yeah. I mean, I think this is a little bit of markets. I mean, I've always liked to look at markets. I know I studied finance and economics in college, and I try to keep track with, of course, the coin collecting area and especially Chinese market. I know in 2011 or so, that was actually the first peak of Chinese numismatics, and up till 2015, I think, if you look at some empirical figures, I think, on coin realized prices.
Anthony Hui:But then I think within the past five years or so, I think, you know, 2020 and 2021 was seen as a big, you know, peak and in a way a bubble for the Chinese market up till 2022, actually, when I talked to my friends in Hong Kong and Taiwan and Mainland China. So, you know, 2022 was a big peak, and I think it was because of COVID. And, you know, in America, was always that fiscal stimulus, you know, I think that also gave a lot of discretionary income and that really raised prices. And I think in terms of Chinese coins, I think, why has that been really high prices in 2021 and 2022? I've talked to some people and stuff, all these masters, and they said that's because of just the popularity where a lot of these Chinese collectors, you know, not only do they have a big income, like they can afford it, can buy a lot, but they also view the opportunity of Chinese coins in The US as a very good opportunity in a way of arbitrage, of course, buy low, sell high, but of course just finding coins that were, you know, sent in the 1930s.
Anthony Hui:You can't find them in China It was most likely nationalists, you know, bringing them from Shanghai and American soldiers bringing them back to The US, and that's why a lot of people, including Chinese collectors overseas are trying to hunt for these coins in America and of course around the And that really has led to elevated prices in 2021, 2022. And I think markets have kind of went down in 2023 a little bit, but in a way has kind of rose up more recently due to various factors that I'm sure we can explain in the video with such as toning, what soy sauce toning, but there's all these other softer factors, but as a whole, China market has really gone up, and I think right now it's been more stabilized ever since a dip in 2023 or so.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Yeah. Yeah. When we're talking about arbitrage, this is one of the fundamentals I believe of the coin business. That is arbitrage basically means buying low in one market and selling higher in another market. It's walking into a particular show, let's say in the middle of the Midwest and finding some coins from another part of the world where the people in the other part of the world may value them more.
Tony Gryckiewicz:You can probably buy them cheaper in the Midwest coin show and you can sell them over in China or in Japan or in some other country. And that basically is arbitrage. It's the same thing that we do when we are also hunting for U. Coins. And we know that like this coin actually sells for quite a bit more on eBay.
Tony Gryckiewicz:So I'm gonna, I'm gonna purchase it here at the asking price and I'm going to then, you know, I'm gonna try to sell it in another marketplace. That's basically the essence of arbitrage. But anyways, so that would be a large driver of the demand for Chinese coins within The United States as people are realizing there's these opportunities to buy them and to try to then resell them over in China because there's a huge demand for those types over there. So I want to jump into the coins here. So I'm going to bring up the presentation and we can talk a little We bit about these have an $18.99, Kyung Nan.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Is that right? It's 5¢.
Anthony Hui:Kyung Nan.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Yeah. Kyung Nan. Okay. Kyung Nan 5¢ piece. So tell me what I'm looking at here.
Tony Gryckiewicz:This would be considered like a dragon. I mean, this, I'm looking at a dragon, but this is a 5¢ piece. So this is not a dragon dollar, right?
Anthony Hui:Yep. I mean, that's, I'm glad they use terms like dragon dollars. Mean, that's always a popular term on Instagram or on eBay and stuff, but this is a silver miner, right? I know some of the older collectors will call them crowns and miners, so this is obviously a 5¢, a weight of 3.6, and it's the smallest denomination of the series from Qiannan Province. They don't have Qiannan Province anymore in modern day China.
Anthony Hui:It got defunct, I think, during the end of the Qing Dynasty. But this was struck at the Nan King Mint, the Nanjing Mint, and it is from 1899, and you can see actually from this side here, which I believe is the obverse, or the second slide, or second People picture, say the dragon side is the obverse a lot, but I usually say that the character with the emperor's is the obverse, but you can see that there is a cyclical date character on the right side and the left side, which is in Mandarin Chinese, and that translates to 1899. This is actually earlier type, and it's actually sorry for cutting you off, but this is actually a very rare type actually. So don't let the small size fool you. I know a lot of people go for the big dollars, this 5¢ is actually rare.
Anthony Hui:The rarest entirety is actually the half dollar, right? Three Masons, six Candarines. But this is actually a very rare key date minor.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Okay. Okay. So much there. So much to unpack. Okay.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Let me start with helping me decipher the reverse here. I do not know Chinese characters. Know Zhongguo, Yingbi, because I learned it five minutes ago. What am I looking at? Starting with this character right here on the right, which I Is this the date right here?
Anthony Hui:That is the first part of the two character dates. This is ji. It's one of the branches of the cyclical date calendar, and then the other character on the left side right there is hai, so ji hai. Ji hai, okay. In Mandarin Chinese, when that's combined, it's apparently 1899, and it's always in increments of 12, like the 12 zodiacs, so 1899, the next cycle you add 12, and add 12, so that's the date, and then the central four characters, if you don't mind me leading the way here, the four characters here is in Mandarin Chinese.
Anthony Hui:The first
Tony Gryckiewicz:means coin, top and
Anthony Hui:yeah. Yeah, means coin or circulating currency, precious currency, and of course, is the penultimate emperor of the Qing dynasty from 1875 to 1908. And then, the top four characters, bred from right to left, old school Chinese, is Jiangnan Sheng Zhao, which means Maid in Qiannan Province. Then, the last legend, Ku Bin San Feng Liu Di, which means the weight of just 3.6 candorines, is the size of a fingernail. It's Interesting.
Anthony Hui:The Yeah.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Okay. So, we've got the date here. We have the name of the emperor as well as the fact that it's a coin. And then we have where it was struck up top here. And then again on the bottom was over the weight of the three point
Anthony Hui:The nine canterenes. Yeah. The canterenes,
Tony Gryckiewicz:3.6. So the obverse, I should say the obverse. So you would say this is the reverse, but this is in Western characters and this is also saying Pyongyang Province three Got point six it. So this is that soy sauce toning that we've talked about, right? Or not so much?
Anthony Hui:Think this is more of not necessarily soy sauce. Discreeted AU50, the Kyung Nan issues are actually, especially the minors, the reason why they're so rare, there's only 3,900 minted of this piece actually, was because the 5¢ was very unprofitable. And of course, the reason why is, as you can see from the die break, maybe it's a later die stage, more evident on the character side, I believe. Like right there, next to the height character. Yep.
Anthony Hui:So it's because they were easily broken, right? The dyes, and that's why the production run was actually very small for these 5¢ miners. And this type of tone, I think, is just a typical circulation from an American collection kind of thing, a craft envelope kind of tone.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Yeah. So the soy sauce is coming. Will
Anthony Hui:get to this.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Learned this term from Anthony.
Anthony Hui:It's a loose translation. I don't know what's the proper way, but I guess it's
Tony Gryckiewicz:You're an exciting culturally appropriating, Tony. You can't talk like that. No. It's not. I learned this.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Anthony's giving me permission to talk about these coins with this one. Anyways, so we got a $19.00 8 central mint TCTCTK dollar. Tae Ching Tiqua. Yeah. Silver coin.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Okay. And again, so tell us a little bit about this one.
Anthony Hui:Yeah. So, you know, I I know, you know, before the interview or something, right? You always talked about what are the classics, right? And obviously people like dollars. Again, dragon dollars.
Anthony Hui:If you go on eBay, it comes up a lot actually, including face. But these dragon dollars, you know, there's always like the three musketeers according to, you know, Mandarin Chinese collectors. They call it the which means there's a trio that's always the common stuff. It's common, but apparently the market likes them, so the prices are a little And bit out of the three, there's the chili dollar, there's the Shuenteng Year $3 from 1911, of course the most rare, and I think the most in demand is the Taiching Tea Quo, or as we call the Empire Dollar. You know, that's a keyword on eBay.
Anthony Hui:If you type Empire Dollar, this would show up actually. And this was made at the Tianqin mint, and of course, the reason why I say TCTK in shorthand is of course Taiching Ti Kuo in English. This is not pinyin. This is not 1950s. This is the Romanization of the Chinese back in 1908.
Anthony Hui:Right? So Taiching, which means great Ching and Ti Kuo might be the empire. And starting on the dragon side, right, you can see the five clawed dragon representing the Chinese emperor, and of course Guangxu Nian Zhao in the offers or the top legends, sorry, and of course that is the emperor's date, but means made in the year of his reign. We don't know the reign, actually, or we don't know the date. It's undated.
Anthony Hui:That's why PCGS would say, ND (nineteen oh eight), because it was made in 1908 according to research papers.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Yeah, yeah. Reminds me a lot of the $16.52 Massachusetts pine tree shilling that was dated at the time when they authorized the minting or I should say, like locally authorized the minting of them. They were not authorized by by Great Britain.
Anthony Hui:Oh.
Tony Gryckiewicz:This is, I know, completely off topic, but it's one of the coins I have in my inventory right now is a $16.52 pine tree shilling. I'm really proud of it. Really like it a lot. It's got a great strike. And anyways, they, the, the, they mandated these coins in 1652, but then they produced them for the next thirty or forty years it kept the '52 date on it.
Tony Gryckiewicz:So kind of somewhat similar, but here it's kind of a, you know, but you're saying this is undated. There's actually no date here. We just know we dated based upon the time of the emperor. Is that right?
Anthony Hui:Yes. And that was his last year of reign, year '34. And I'm not saying this is a restrike, you know, was not really a restrike of this. It's indeed made in 1908, but there are certain Chinese coins that did not explicitly put a date on. And this is the classic example of that, but it's 1908.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Okay. So let me so we don't have a date. As you can, we got these Yep. Nubs here. We don't want a date.
Tony Gryckiewicz:I'm assuming this is the denomination again.
Anthony Hui:Absolutely correct. Yep. The weight.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Look at that. Alright. Nice. And then we have basically, guessing something having to do with Yinbi or Chenbi,
Anthony Hui:Yeah. Circulating currency. Yep.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Okay. Very good. Very good. And what's the top here? Is this Yes.
Anthony Hui:This is a pretty cool thing. So in Mandarin Chinese, they would call this right? So right to left is and then there was shorthand say the first and third character. And what does this mean? It basically means central mint, AKA Tianxin at that time.
Anthony Hui:And that's one way to know that this is from the central mint. It's not a provincial issue, which is another keyword that we use, a buzzword, provincial, is like the Qiannon that you showed as the first coin. So this is a central unified Taiching Ti Kuo empire dollar.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Yeah. Now these, I recently saw one. I had an opportunity to buy one. I didn't get a chance to buy it. I don't remember the exact date or what time period, but I think it was one of these.
Tony Gryckiewicz:It was like an MS62 though. And I remember that I had an opportunity, it was something like $9,000 or something like that was the asking price. And I wasn't able to, you know, seal the deal with this particular individual for it. But yeah, I remember that was about the asking price. So even in a lower grade like this, just give me a range.
Tony Gryckiewicz:I mean, ballpark, you know, this is a VF 30, right?
Anthony Hui:So Yeah, VF, it's pretty low. I actually sent this coin in raw and I mean, I think a VF30 PCGS, I would say around like $2 or, you know, 1,800 to $2 or something. It goes into XF45, for instance, it's going to be a $5 type of coin actually. But these are not rare. These coins aren't really rare, objectively speaking.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Well, I mean, but a coin in a VF30 grade, a very fine 30 grade that is already at the $2,000 range, That's pretty, that's a pretty rare coin. I mean, we're just relatively speaking. When you think about so many Morgan dollars, there's a small number of them, small number of dates, 93 S or a, you know, an 89 CC, where an 89 CC, 1889 Carson City in the F30 is probably going to be right around that $2,000 $2,500 range approximately or so. But yeah, there's not that many Carson City dollars, I would say not that many Morgan dollars that are in these lower grades that are at that kind of So it's a huge, huge opportunity there. I like that a lot.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Let's go on to this. So this is Yep. What am I this isn't is this gold or, or
Anthony Hui:Well, is brass. I wish it was gold, but it's it's brass. And, you know, I mean, I'm glad they were kind of thematically talking about, oh, dragons, aka Imperial. Right? And and I think the very first coin was a provincial issue.
Anthony Hui:The second coin was a central empire issue, and then this third coin is actually a provincial issue once again. And it's actually from Fujian Province, right? That's before Pinyin, and Mandarin Chinese is Fujian, which is a province right next to Guangdong, right? Fujian Province, you know, right across the strait would be Taiwan, so Fujian was also a very popular province that made a lot of circulating coins, but this piece right here is a one cash, right? In Chinese, 1 yiwen is the denomination for cash, which is obviously cash is copper.
Anthony Hui:That's cheaper than silver, of course. But don't let this small size fool you as well. This is actually a very rare type actually. Did not see any public auction records actually in big American auction houses. I only saw one in twenty eleven in Beijing, Changshan actually.
Anthony Hui:It was a raw coin. This is also, this dragon might be similar to the dragon from the previous type, right? The coiled dragon. This is actually because this piece was made in 1908, and they used the empire style dragon. You're able to corroborate this claim by looking at the other side.
Anthony Hui:Okay. Can Yep. See So this is actually just one cache. It's also the size of a fingernail. And just breaking it down, and Tony, probably know the date, right?
Anthony Hui:It's going to be Wushen, right? It's going to be 1908, cyclical date, and the central character is what one eye you can glance, right? It is from Fujian province, because in Mandarin Chinese, that character is mitten. If you go into the car plates right now in China, in Fujian, they have this character in simplified Chinese, but this represents Fujian Province, right? Capital Fuchow.
Anthony Hui:And it says Guangxu, which is the emperor, penultimate emperor, on the top, and the denomination, Yiwen, on the bottom, and then cyclical date, left and right, and central character, Min for Fujian. So this is a provincial issue.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Let me ask you a question there. So you just used the word penultimate emperor. My understanding of that word means second to last. Correct. Not the current one, but the second to last.
Tony Gryckiewicz:That's what you mean here.
Anthony Hui:Yeah. That's correct. I guess it's a fancy word, but I hear it a lot in papers. So
Tony Gryckiewicz:Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's a it's yeah, ultimate would mean like the last one and penultimate would be the previous to last one. They use this actually all the time in Italian. I speak, you know, fairly decent Italian.
Anthony Hui:Yeah, I heard it.
Tony Gryckiewicz:And Ultimo would mean the last. And then Penultimo, I believe, would mean second to last. And so they use this all the time as part of their parlance, part of their speaking. But anyways, that's that's interesting. Okay.
Tony Gryckiewicz:So so this is the second to this is the previous emperor that they put So his name on the why would they do that as opposed to the one whoever was during this time? Or is this the republic or something?
Anthony Hui:Well, this is 1908 actually. So This is actually his very last year of reign. In 1908, Emperor Sisi was actually Douager Empress, and I think he died first, and then the Empress Douager also died too. But in 1908, that was his last year of reign, so this is not some restraint. This is indeed from Emperor Guangxu, right when he was about to pass away, which is of course 1908, or in cyclical year, Wushen.
Tony Gryckiewicz:It's a very interesting piece. You said this is about the size of a fingernail.
Anthony Hui:Correct.
Tony Gryckiewicz:So it's pretty small, I guess, relative to the size of your fingers. Just give me approximate idea here of about this grade. This is very rare, but what is approximately about the market value?
Anthony Hui:Back in 2011, I saw a raw one. That was the only public market comp from a Beijing auction, and that was around 5 or $6. I just don't know the valuation of this piece. It's seldom seen in auction.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Yeah. This is an auction piece if you ever had a chance to sell it. This is probably an auction piece. I mean, really, when there's no compare sales, you don't know what could happen.
Anthony Hui:I don't know.
Tony Gryckiewicz:So anyways, anyways, alright. We'll move on here to this gentleman. And this is the Szechuan rupee for to debt use, $19.11 to 33. So what am I looking here, and who is this handsome devil?
Anthony Hui:So I always talk about this penultimate emperor. How does he even look like? I guess I skipped the baby emperor Puyi. There's a movie about it. But you know, the penultimate emperor was Guangxu, and apparently this is the supposed bust of Emperor Guangxu, although some researchers in Mainland China say that this might be just a Mandarin, just an official.
Anthony Hui:A lot of people say, including Edward Khan in his nineteen fifty four sixty six catalogs, that this is the bust of Emperor Kwang Xu. He was a young guy, you know, he suffered a lot actually. He tried reform, it couldn't happen. He lost during the first Sino Japanese War, and the Boxer Rebellion and Sino French War, whatever. So this is Emperor Guangxu, and this was made at the Chengdu Mint of Szechuan, the capital of Szechuan province, right?
Anthony Hui:They're famous for their spicy food, and I heard McDonald's had their Szechuan sauce or something, but you know, this is made in Szechuan province. It was minted there, but it was used in Tibet, which of course, that region is very close to Szechuan province. My final remark here is that this looks very similar to, let's say, an Indian rupee of colonial India the portrait of Queen Victoria, and that's because it was an inspiration from the British Indian rupees, right, the crown jewel of their rupees.
Tony Gryckiewicz:I would say I haven't seen many Chinese coins with kind of this flowery reversal. Yeah. What do you think about that? Is that some way tying it to that rupee kind of concept?
Anthony Hui:Absolutely. And one last thing is this is the high silver finest version. It's the first period rupee because it has a higher silver finest, and you can actually see that from looking at the bust, right? Variety of the bust is a collared bust, so we call it very systematically. It's a collared bust.
Anthony Hui:Actually the uncollared version, which might be period zero. Are the expensive You might have showed me one in 'sixty one, but this is a collared bust, and then the reverse, if you don't mind going to the reverse, you can see that the central pedal is vertical. So to put it bluntly, in one eye you'll see this is a vertical vertical leaf collar bust variety from the Chengdu mint. Because the ultimate fourth period because this is first period, very good silver. The fourth period is like big face.
Anthony Hui:The head is so big, the nose is so long, and there's even red bits on the coin because it's literally D based silver. As the period went by, by 1939, the silver finest was 50% or so. PCGS call it 1939 to '42. This But is 1911 to 1933, so believe it or not, to answer some previous pointers you had, this was used in the Republican period, even though it has the emperor's face on it, because it's from 1911 to '33 according to PCGS and NGC, and I guess this could be a segue to the republican era.
Tony Gryckiewicz:I just wanna zero in on this guy's eyebrows for a second because he's got some serious eyebrows.
Anthony Hui:Yeah. And his lips.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Yeah. Very prominent, very prominent, Kardashian like lips, and, he's got very Yeah. Very, very strong eyebrows. You ever noticed a lot of these, emperors and these these rulers and so forth, they got pretty serious eyebrows. I'm just thinking of Stalin and Brezhnev up in up in Russia, but apparently Yep.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Guy as well. Yep. Interesting. Maybe it's a sign of dominance. It's it's a sign of power.
Tony Gryckiewicz:And we got my favorite guy here, the fat man. This is literally what this coin is referred to as, is a fat man dollar. I believe we got the soy sauce toning in this because you can also find these very, very bright white, which is like the one that believe that, you know, that I transacted with you. Yep. But this is a nice, really nicely toned.
Tony Gryckiewicz:This is only an XF45, but Yeah. So this is probably the most famous Chinese dollar, I think, right?
Anthony Hui:I agree. I agree. Okay. It's accessible, and I think researchers say more than a billion were made. Just briefly, there are four years, three, eight, nine, and ten.
Anthony Hui:Year eight is the rarest, right? 1911 plus '8 is 1919. This is year nine, and that will be 1911 plus nine is 1920, and this variety is called the fine hair variety because the hair is a little bit more sharp, but sometimes there's misleading ones, and I think the only way to tell is by going to the reverse side, and if you go to the reverse side, the fine hair variety is the more expensive variety, empirically speaking, and you're able to tell because this reef is a little bit more smaller, right? So actually, if the reef is a little bigger, it will be the reverse of 1914, but to give you the answer, is how you know
Tony Gryckiewicz:a reef.
Anthony Hui:Yeah, it's slightly Really? Yeah, bigger one, but the key tell is just by going to the 09:00 position, the denticle at the 09:00 position on the reverse, right? There's missing a little line or one of them somewhere. If you go on top or that area, so you see your mouse pointer, just go one step higher, it's actually missing Oh, okay,
Tony Gryckiewicz:right there, missing one right there.
Anthony Hui:And I guess that's the dye, but that is the telltale sign for PCGS and a little bit for NGC that this is the fine hair variety small wreath. There's actually a fine hair variety large wreath, but this is the more popular type. Yep.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Got it. So basically, every one of these fine hair small wreaths are going to have this missing denticle because of the dyes that we used to make those. So this would be a perfect diagnostic to be able to telltale sign for that. Yeah. Mean, I definitely noticed that his hair was on fleek.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Yeah. It was looking, it was looking good. Remind me again, though, who this is?
Anthony Hui:Yeah, this is Yuan Shikai. I mean, he also assisted Doctor. Sun Yat sen in toppling the Qing, and he actually proclaimed himself as emperor in, I think, 1915 or '16 for just a couple months and stuff. He made himself the Hongxian Emperor, but a lot of people don't really like him. He elbowed Sun aside, but he also was a big part in toppling the Qing dynasty.
Anthony Hui:I think he's from Shandong province, I believe, and he served in Korea during the Joseon dynasty, came back, and he transitioned from the late Qing to the early republic till 1916 or so. It.
Tony Gryckiewicz:These are fairly, it's a fairly common type. It's an accessible type. It's the coins that you guys can find easily at coin shows and things, but they're very nice and they're very popular. This is, in my opinion, this is kind of like the Morgan dollar.
Anthony Hui:Absolutely. Yep.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Of Chinese silver coins. Now this one, I don't know what this is referred to. I'd probably call this the old man dollar, but
Anthony Hui:Oh no. Well, this is actually Sun Yat sen and this is a silver 20¢ piece. So this is the, I guess the guy that Yuan Shikai El will decide, right? Sun Yat sen, he's the leader of the revolution, right? And this piece features Doctor.
Anthony Hui:Sun Yat sen, who's from Guangdong, he's Cantonese, just like me. And this was from Guangdong province, from the mint in Canton, and this is a 20¢, and this is actually a rare type actually, because this, you might see this on eBay a lot, but that's actually from 1929, year '18. This is actually from year '13, which is 1924, right? Nineteen eleven plus thirteen, and this is a single year type, and if you go on the reverse, you know, I'm not going to say this is a mule, but you see on eBay a lot this obverse. This obverse is often paired with a 20 reverse, a reverse that has a big 20 on it, but this one actually is paired with the portrait of Doctor.
Anthony Hui:Sun Yat Sen. I'm going be careful not to say it's a mule, it's a type, but this is a silver 20¢ piece, and it's a rare type as a whole.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Yeah. And just as a side note again for folks, when we refer to the term mule, mule is a kind of a technical term in numismatics, and what it refers to is a coin that has two different types on both sides of the coin. So one side might be a Washington quarter and the other side might be used to die of a Jefferson nickel. And if by chance the Jefferson nickel die was used to strike the reverse side of the Washington quarter, We call that a mule because there are two different types that basically got created onto one coin. Yeah.
Tony Gryckiewicz:It does happen from time to time, either intentionally or through some sort of a mistake and error at the mint and those coins sometimes enter into circulation possibly. They're usually pretty valuable if you ever find them, in any series, but now very interesting. So what is this one referred to colloquially? This, so this is the, yeah, okay. Nineteen twenty four Kwang Hong.
Anthony Hui:We call it like a Kwang Teng, like a 20¢ piece the Prime Minister Zhongli at times, like Doctor. Sun But Yat this is a Oh, it's a provincial issue, right? Not made from the central Min, it's made into Kwang Teng Min, the first Chinese mint for circulation pieces, and you can see that because the bottom character in traditional Chinese is Guangdong Sheng Zao, right? In Cantonese Guangdong San Zou, which is made in the Guangdong province.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Okay. Approximate value, MS64 here?
Anthony Hui:Probably like $2, you know, 2,500 or so in '64. Wow. I actually sent this in as a crossover from an NGC 63. I actually upgraded to a 64, so I guess I was happy Yeah, with
Tony Gryckiewicz:for sure. Really huge win right there. All right, so we'll move on to the nineteen twenty six China twenty cent piece in XF45. This has got some lovely, a lovely look to it. People, you might look at this initially and say that it's kind of dirty, but this has, it's a circulated issue.
Tony Gryckiewicz:It's an XF45, extra $5.45, so it's absolutely been a circulated issue. And at the same time, there's no signs of heavy cleaning in any way or any kind of restoration to make this coin brighter. So this is actually a preferred look for many coins, whether it's US coins or any coins is usually when coins look like this. A lot of these coins that Anthony is showing us, sharing with us, they are absolutely beautiful. And this is, this is definitely not, not an exception to that.
Tony Gryckiewicz:So anyways, go ahead, sir. So we got, we got two dragons here. They're drinking some Actually,
Anthony Hui:that's a, that's a phoenix or the older people call it So dragon and phoenix. Alright.
Tony Gryckiewicz:So yeah, dragon, but still, I mean, let's go. There's a dragon and there's a phoenix here, a peacock. They're both drinking some wine together.
Anthony Hui:That is correct.
Tony Gryckiewicz:What's going on in this scene?
Anthony Hui:Well, just put it bluntly, a lot of American collectors from, let's say the 70s, right, or if you look at 70s auction catalogs, they called this the Puyi wedding, right? Puyi was the final emperor. I know I didn't talk about coins from his reign, but they called it the Puyi wedding, wedding 10¢, wedding 20¢, wedding dollar, which is a very rare type, but in reality, that is not true. This is actually the proposed emblem of the Republic Of China, and that's as simple as that, but it did not get adopted, and that's the simple That's the
Tony Gryckiewicz:What's the significance? What's the significance of the pairing of the peacock and the dragon?
Anthony Hui:Well, I guess that is related to a wedding, right? The union of male and female or in Chinese wedding banquets in New York City or in Hong Kong. See those restaurants have a dragon in Phoenix when people are getting married. So this is, of course, very traditional Chinese of a Phoenix representing the women, let's say, and of course the man being the dragon. Of course, that is what used to be the proposed design of the Republic Of China, and I guess they didn't like it, and he pivoted away from it, But it's not the wedding dollar of the last emperor.
Anthony Hui:Wedding emblem.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And the reverse here, we have another wreath again. Yeah.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Yeah. I'm assuming the denomination here is
Anthony Hui:this correct. Yeah.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Where this was made or is this This the is the date. Okay. Yep. Yeah. And is this the same?
Tony Gryckiewicz:So is this like what, fifteen years after the start?
Anthony Hui:That is correct. October, you're right, that's '15. Okay. I always say, Oh, nineteen eleven plus '15. I know I try to do that math, it's because 1911 was the beginning of the Republic.
Anthony Hui:You add '15, it's got to be 1926. One last thing, the denomination is at the bottom as well. It's more of a sentence saying, You need five of them to make a dollar. That's it. Okay.
Anthony Hui:Nice. Yeah. So 20¢.
Tony Gryckiewicz:That's interesting. I love that. Does that mean that this character right here is a dollar?
Anthony Hui:You're right. That is the dollar.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Okay. So this is basically saying you need five of this coin in order to equal $1.
Anthony Hui:Yep. You know your Chinese, Tony.
Tony Gryckiewicz:I You just eyeball
Anthony Hui:That it
Tony Gryckiewicz:was, completely on the fly. I I I don't know. That was it's just kinda logical, I guess. Right?
Anthony Hui:You're right. Yeah.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Yeah. Especially if the traditional Chinese is is read from the right to the left. So Yeah. Interesting. Very interesting.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Well, I got a great, a great teacher here. This is an awesome lesson. Zhongguo Yingbi. Zhongguo Yingbi. Okay.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Let's move on here. So we have this handsome gentleman. This, so this is a 1927 Sanyat sen. Yeah. Doctor.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Sanyat sen. Okay. 20¢ commemorative. This is a commemorative piece. Okay.
Tony Gryckiewicz:So China made some commemorative pieces. Interesting. Very interesting. Yeah. Also half well, no, this is a 20¢.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Sorry.
Anthony Hui:20¢ as well.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Yeah. Compared to all of our commemorative half dollars in The US. But anyways, so go ahead. So this has got lovely toning. This is MS64.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Yeah. Tell us about this coin.
Anthony Hui:Well, this coin is a commemorative, you know, PC just on the holder would say China Republic, which implies Central Min Tianjin or Nanjing or Shanghai, but this is actually from the Fu Chaomei in Fujian province, actually, but they call it Central Min because it has the portrait of Doctor. Sun Yasen, and in Mandarin Chinese we call this Zhongli Er Jiao, which means Prime Minister 20¢ coin, and this is actually made in year '16. You can see that from the four characters on the left side that is coiling, right? One sixth year, so it's going to be '10 sixths or '16, which is 1927. This, according to American collectors and American auction catalogs from the 70s, is the death of Sun Yat sen commemorative.
Anthony Hui:So right after Sun Yat Sen died and passed away, they made this coin with the portrait of Doctor Sun Yat Sen.
Tony Gryckiewicz:I see. I see. Okay. And so we have two flags. Yep.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Two flags representing I'm I'm I'm some kind of a union again. Again, have, it looks like we have four or yeah, five of these would equal to $1 Correct. No. No.
Anthony Hui:Is that five of them? Yeah.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Yeah. Yeah. Equal to Yeah.
Anthony Hui:And just to tie it along, the first character is $2.10 cents or 20¢. And of course you got the two flags and I want to be careful with my words here. So this is going to be the party flag of the Kuomintang, and of course the flag of the country as well, the flag of the period of that time, so the nationalist flag actually, which I believe is the one on the right side, and of course the party flag of the KMT, the Kuomintang, on the left side.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Okay. Okay. Wonderful. And this is the date? Is that right?
Anthony Hui:Or the denomination. Is
Tony Gryckiewicz:the denomination. That make more sense. Yeah. Well, wait, wait, no. So I thought this was the date.
Tony Gryckiewicz:This was saying that five of them equals a dollar.
Anthony Hui:Yeah. That's just another way to say the denomination. I guess it contextualizes it for the person using it.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Okay. Okay. All right. All right. Yep.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Fair enough. Yeah. No, that's a beautiful coin and approximate value in this guy MS64.
Anthony Hui:64 is definitely a high, high grade. I think the toning adds to it and the and the strike is good. Probably like 4 and a half, 4.5 k, I think. Around that area.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Alright. $4,500 or so. Interesting. Very good stuff. Alright.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Now I know this coin. A friend of mine had discovered one of these, and I believe this is really valuable coin. This is an XF cleaned version. So but this is a $19.28 Kuaichao auto dollar. And it had something to do with some kind of a mobster or mob boss that got a car put on a coin.
Tony Gryckiewicz:So tell me the story here. Help me out.
Anthony Hui:You're almost there. It's actually the warlord. And I guess some warlords are likened to bosses of their respective province, so this is actually the warlord Zhou Xicheng, and he was actually the warlord of Kuaichao, a quite poor province, right next to Sichuan, and I'm going to tie that piece together, soon when you flip it over. This is actually like a Hudson, I think a car or something. Thought it was a Ford, but then the Wikipedia page, which my friend edited, is actually a Hudson or something like that.
Anthony Hui:It's basically, warlord actually brought this car, disassembled it, I think from the port of entry, Shanghai, prosperous Chinese city back then, even now, and he had it through a road and stuff and probably horse drawn carriage, and basically assembled that car in the capital of Kueichao province, right? This young Zhou Xicheng. And this guy was a very interesting character, and honestly, why did he put a car here? Of course, to also show off himself. He was apparently the only person in the entire province to have a car, but also at the same time, there's good meaning here, and personally I support this, because he did infrastructure projects.
Anthony Hui:He built the first road in Quechua. That's why some of the older NGC faddies that have this Cui Chao dollar probably slapped in the 1990s, they would always say Cui Chao dash first road, because it implies the infrastructure capital spending and stuff, expenditures by the provincial government under Zhou Xicheng, the warlord, to basically build roads in Kuaichao province. Honestly, that ties it in with a car, and ultimately, this is an iconic type in not only Chinese numismatics, but of course, for any collector of world crowns as well.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Yeah. I'm just gonna ballpark and say this is worth about $10,000.
Anthony Hui:I think an XF Clean right now, I think they consistently hammer $25 at 27.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Oh. Knock me out my chair, man. This is a this is a great coin. I mean, XF cleaned.
Anthony Hui:It's uncleaned, know, an XF 40 is $72 on on Heritage, the recent, you know, Hong Kong auction. So they are pricey coins and stuff.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Yeah. I just want to throw it out there. Had no idea. I just completely ball parked. I had no idea at all.
Tony Gryckiewicz:So I totally believe you got the right idea of the market. Nice. Very nice. Yeah. I'm I'm really curious on what the front end of this car is it maybe this is the bumper maybe,
Anthony Hui:I guess? I think so. I think so, honestly. Yeah. I and and one last little trivia before you Oh, flip the the other
Tony Gryckiewicz:Yeah. Actually.
Anthony Hui:Yeah, so you can see here, the flower, that is very similar to that 10¢ piece from the Szechuan military government, right? The Fudong Huai, think it's the hibiscus, I think. Yeah. And this is actually because this was actually made from dyes either stolen from the Chengdu mint, or it was actually minted there, because ultimately Szechuan just became Kui Chao, because the yin be, the silver coin, left and right, is same. They just switched the North and South character.
Anthony Hui:So a lot of researchers say that this was actually made from equipment stolen from the Chengdu Min, or the Chongqing Min, but the Chengdu Min in Szechuan, and brought over to Kui Chao to make these Kui Chao auto dollars. I thought that was a pretty cool trivia.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Yeah. Absolutely. I I yeah. I really like this coin quite a bit. I think it's super interesting.
Tony Gryckiewicz:The history
Anthony Hui:It's of this coin cleaned, but it's Awesome. In hand. It's not a it's not a white coin. It's there's actually some good luster on the on the character side, and I thought that the tone was at least an old cleaning. I I don't mind it.
Anthony Hui:Yeah. And Yeah. Yeah.
Tony Gryckiewicz:I'll say a word or two just about clean coins real quick, and I because I get this question from time to time, and there it's all relative in terms of whether cleaning matters in my opinion, because there are some coins where there's a lot of really, really nice coins and there's no reason to settle for a coin that has obvious cleaning on it. In those cases, of course, why would you want to purchase one that has been cleaned in some way and it's so harshly clean that the grading company puts a clean designation on it. But there's other pieces that are so rare that just to get an example of the type, you actually can get a wonderful coin at a great price by buying a version that, you know, that you find that is, you know, clean, it has something that has on the holder that prevents it from being straight graded. You're probably going to get a huge discount on the coin. And in the case of this, the eye appeal is still there.
Tony Gryckiewicz:The eye appeal is still great. In my opinion, it's really tough to see the cleaning. It's just the fact that the surfaces are fairly dull and they've been retoned over. The toning is actually quite nice. It's got great eye appeal overall.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Both sides look fabulous. And I mean, you can see, you definitely can see the lines here that are kind of the signs of the cleaning, but it all really depends. I've owned really rare coins that, that I've done really well in my inventory for my business and with collectors that I personally enjoy quite a bit that had a cleaned designation on them because of how rare the coin was, how difficult it was to find. And just the fact that the IPO was still all completely there. So it's all totally relative, and think we need to make clean coins great again.
Anthony Hui:Tony, one last thing, going to car side, if you actually zoom into the grass, the other trivia is Zhou Xicheng's name is actually written there. Okay. Is it in the grass?
Tony Gryckiewicz:Is it right here?
Anthony Hui:It's in the grass. That is absolutely correct. The way the old time Chinese script, he actually put that as an easter egg. Is a little bit I guess it's a little worn out, or maybe it's a weak strike. I'm not trying to defend the coin too much, but it might be worn out a little, but, you know, it's still great at XF.
Anthony Hui:Usually sometimes they're very sharply struck, so you can see it. But this example, it seems maybe a weak strike or obviously some wear as well on the on the grass, but you can see that when you piece
Tony Gryckiewicz:them Yeah. This is a coin that I'm going to hunt for, man. I'm going to find one of these one day at a coin show. I just know it. I'm going to find one of these someday.
Tony Gryckiewicz:I'm going to keep on hunting
Anthony Hui:Always you on the lookout. Yep.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Yep. Yep. Okay. Our last piece is going be a $19.33. This is a beautiful coin.
Tony Gryckiewicz:This is an MS62 with a fabulous toning.
Anthony Hui:The soy sauce. This is the soy sauce for last according to.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Awesome. Awesome. Yeah. I mean, obviously this is a MS, mint state 62, but it's got such nice deep dark rich toning. And this is referred to as a junk dollar, I believe, because this is a Chinese junk on the reverse, the That
Anthony Hui:is correct. And just to kind of put this into context, you know, flatly speaking, and y'all probably might notice, but the birds over junk in '21, which is 1932, that has three birds on it.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Yeah, it's not this one.
Anthony Hui:Yeah, which is not that one. That's maybe entire type in general, but then there's the ones without a bird, which is year '22 and year '23. Fluctantly speaking, year '22 is the better date. It's more rare compared to year '23, which was apparently made at the Philadelphia Mint too as restrikes too. So the year '22 is a better date, of course pales in comparison to the Birds over Junk Dollar, but this is, you know, a piece from the Shanghai Mint, and you know, it features the traditional Chinese junk boat ship on the reverse, and of course a very simple design, which I don't mind, right?
Anthony Hui:One traditional Chinese on the left, and yuan, which means dollar on the left side. Right side is $1 on the left. And on the obverse side, you can see, I guess, one of my favorite historical figures, Doctor. Sun Yat sen, and of course, the simple legend on top of just the year, year '22, which is 1911 plus '2 is 1933. General, this is actually a rarer variety because it's actually a mule, so the reverse, the ship, is actually the pairing of the ship design of the more common 1934, and you're able to see that based on the sail lines, the ropes at the bottom on the reverse side.
Anthony Hui:Question
Tony Gryckiewicz:for you, okay, so I'm trying to piece this together here. I don't want to make the wrong assumption because I see this looks a lot like an equal sign in Western math, and this is a plus sign, and we're talking about this number plus that number. Is that what this is or not?
Anthony Hui:In a way, you're very close because that equal sign is two and that cross sign is 10, and then there's a two. Two, ten, two, which means maybe two sets of 10 plus the two, which is 22.
Tony Gryckiewicz:22. Yeah. Okay. I see. Alright.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Very good.
Anthony Hui:And I guess if you go on to the other side, I guess I can show the way to cherry pick, right? The mule is if you zoom into, let's say, the left sail, and you go all the way down to the edge of that boat, you can see that there is a rope at the edge of the boat, Exactly right there. This picture may not show it that evident. This is actually a crossover. I crossed this over from an NGC 62 to a PCGS 62, full transparency, but there's actually not just one line, but there's actually another line, if you zoom in even more, and that is basically the mule of the exactly, of the next year's ship, and GC apparently doesn't put them on the holders.
Anthony Hui:Recently they do, so that might be a cherry picking opportunity, but PCGS recognizes it. This is a mule and a slightly scarcer type.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Between two different years.
Anthony Hui:Between two different years.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Because this is supposed to be the '34, this is supposed to be the Exactly. Plus '13 or
Anthony Hui:plus '23. Yeah.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Yeah. Plus '23. And instead it's got, yeah. Okay. So this is actually, a use of the, the next year's die for the reverse.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Yep. Yeah. Okay. Nice. And just give me an idea here.
Tony Gryckiewicz:I know I've owned these in like '64. Uh-huh. Was about $900 coin. So with this toning and this I mean, fact that this is the Mule one, which is the more which is a pretty rare issue, What is this worth?
Anthony Hui:I think, you know, empirically speaking, you go into auctions like that soy sauce, which is I know I didn't really I glossed over it, but it's like this kind of dark, in Chinese is jiang cai, which is apparently sauce color, but it's a very dark, and it's not environmental damage, it's not eating in, it's just like a very thick, you know, from an American collection, wooden cabinet kind of tone. Looks even Like better in it's maybe it's terminal in a way, but it's not like corrosive, you know, so it's natural tone, that really adds to the premium, so I would say this, with this type of toning, would be probably like $2,800 and even higher in the mainland Chinese market. I've seen them go for a little bit more than that because of this original crust, original soy sauce type of toning on the MS level. Chinese people love originality all the way.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Yeah. As do, you know, people from U. S. Collector coins too, but at the same time, I mean, it's undeniable that so many people do prefer blast white coins, blast white, you know, U. Dollars, silver dollars.
Tony Gryckiewicz:But in this market, there's a preference for those that have not been brightened in any way to make them more white, to have this kind of original, original toning. And so, yeah, that makes sense. Is this kind of equivalent to, you know, Morgan dollars? You can find some really spectacularly toned ones. We've had a couple episodes in rainbow tone Morgans that adds a lot of value to the coin just based on the toning.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Is that kind of similar here?
Anthony Hui:Absolutely. I believe so. You know, judge each coin by the coin, you know, judge the coin, not the holder, and really analyze them one by one.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Yeah. Awesome. All right. So I'm going to pause and we're going to just wrap up with a couple further questions. All right.
Tony Gryckiewicz:So I got two final questions for you and then we'll wrap up. And first off, you know, we can't talk about Chinese coins without discussing a little bit about counterfeits. It's a big topic in the world coin collecting in general. There's a lot of counterfeits also of US coins that I know come out of Chinese markets. But how does counterfeiting a factor into collecting Chinese coins specifically?
Tony Gryckiewicz:What should buyers be aware of?
Anthony Hui:Yeah. I think definitely getting counterfeits are always a big part. Think definitely knowing your source and of course doing due diligence in reading up on books. I have a bookshelf of all these seminal Chinese catalogs and stuff, and I think just reading and comparing what's being graded out there, even though there are a lot of high grade fake Chinese, and I won't get too detailed into this, that are already slabbed by NGC and PCGS, and that's actually a little bit scary. So just definitely being certain of just objectively looking at each coin, and then corroborating that with third party grading, and just trying to have a blended approach, old auction catalogs versus your feel, as subjective as it sounds, and of course comparing that with third party grading, and ultimately if you need to, send it in for third party grading.
Anthony Hui:There's just a lot of high grade fakes, and there's a lot of rumors that I don't know too much about. It's floating around in other markets, but it's a very deep water in Chinese, and that's why buying from American sources could be a good way, right? Because we like to hear old collections. That might be a good thing, right?
Tony Gryckiewicz:So
Anthony Hui:I think those might be ways from a qualitative and quantitative standpoint to try to mitigate the risks of buying counterfeits or high grade fakes or something, right?
Tony Gryckiewicz:Yeah. I think it's a good point to note that one of the reasons I believe that we're removing the certification numbers is to avoid and prevent counterfeiting because if you look at this coin and you say, All right, well, know what the certification number is, then a counterfeiter, if they have a counterfeit example of one of these coins, they try to put it into a fake holder and they'll put this certification number on it because they will try to fool the person who's not going to look it up on the PCGS website or on the NGC site and to say to themselves, wait, you know, this isn't exactly the coin that I'm looking at right here. Cause they go to the website, they pull up your coin or pull up the coin that's, you know, actually tied to that number and they don't compare it to the one that they see in the holder and right in front of them and they might purchase the coin. So we're actually trying to mask or remove those numbers in order to help prevent counterfeiting.
Anthony Hui:Yeah.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Yeah. What do you, where do you see the market for Chinese coins going in the next five or ten years? Is this momentum that we're seeing, is this sustainable? What's your outlook for the future on this stuff?
Anthony Hui:Yeah. Mean, from a personal, my opinion standpoint, I know ebbs and flows. I know business cycles, there's ups and downs, and just like the economy. I know the peak was in 2021, 2022, and a lot of my friends overseas would say, Oh, yeah, a ten year cool down period. But I feel like right now, personally, I felt the market has been a little bit on the upside.
Anthony Hui:You know, it's a little bit bullish. I think ultimately it comes down to this, and it will be very cliche and, of course, ties to all other coin collecting like US coins or dollars or something, which, of course, quality matters. Obviously buy the coin, not the holder. I'm just echoing what people say apparently PCGS Chinese is preferred than NGC Chinese. I'm just stating what I believe in.
Anthony Hui:But then there's always opportunities where if you believe there's a good quality coin in another holder and you cross it, it will work out for you. It's very cliche, but it's just quality comes first, and maybe try to find the best you can afford for everyone's budget. I think that would be good in terms of locking in the value. Of course, liquidity when slabbed encapsulated third party down the line for selling. But of course, I think quality matters.
Anthony Hui:That would be what? What are some examples? Originality of Chinese coins. Soy sauce is apparently popular in Mainland China, and of course, blast white with some peripheral rainbows are very popular in Hong Kong and Taiwan and The US, and just try to go for originality. Of course, apparently the Chinese collectors don't like chop mark coins.
Anthony Hui:PCGS code 98, right? They're okay with environmental damage because they might say it's crusty, or they're okay with clean because they might say it's light cleaning, or they might retone it and send it in for a straight clean. All sorts of underlying stuff, which is very the nuance, the nitty gritty, which I need to learn myself as well. But I think at the end, the bottom line is the market is going up again, in my opinion, and of course, quality is the one that really matters, especially for the so called inventory, as we say in Chinese, which is the everyday pieces, versus let's say the so called, maybe bluntly speaking, higher end, maybe some pattern pieces or maybe even the Cui Chao Auditor. I think those are more stable, but then the more everyday pieces, quality matters, of course, and that will allow them to ride the waves with less volatility.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Yeah. I think that my opinion on this question is that as we see the Chinese economy continue to grow, which it's going to continue to grow for the next however many years, hopefully for a very long time, as China continues to industrialize and then it's such a large player in the world economy. As it occurs, there's going to be more wealth creation within China. And as there is more wealth creation, hobbies and collectible hobbies tend to do very, very well. Why?
Tony Gryckiewicz:Because I mean, it's just kind of common sense people, you know, with money as they continue to accumulate wealth, they start to get into various hobbies and they want to start collecting something that, you know, they, they, maybe they collected as a child and then they get a chance to or get back into they want to build a large collection of things. This drives the demand for hobbies and for collectibles and for coins. And I believe that what we're going see is we're going to probably see a real boom of these Chinese coins in the next thirty, forty years during the course of the rest of my lifetime, I think for sure. And even, you know, sooner, you know, I think, you know, before that. I think this is a great area of opportunity, especially for somebody, you know, take a break from the same plain old thing that, you know, US dollars or US US coins get out there and, you know, dabble in some other areas and build some other sets.
Tony Gryckiewicz:So I agree. So yeah. So Anthony, Shiashiya, thank you so much Thank you. For joining me today. For those of you out there, if you listened this far, appreciate it so much.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Hit that like button, the the subscribe, the shares, comments below, increase that engagement in this in this post and this in this this video. And I'm hoping to be able to bring you guys so many more to come in the future. Oh, by the way, if somebody wants to reach out to you and and has a question about Asian coins, how can they get a get a hold of you?
Anthony Hui:Yeah. My Instagram, which I've started since middle school, is anthonythecoinman, so that's where I post my coins. I guess that might be the most convenient way, and I try to be active and try to identify and help you guys out and stuff. Last thing on my side, Tony, thank you again for this series of podcast slash YouTube videos. I think it definitely allows for coin collecting to be more accessible, I think, to across all audience members, skill and experience and everything.
Anthony Hui:I mean, I always like to look at all those previous ones and learn. And I'm glad that you have some WorldCoin exposure as well. So yeah, thank you so much for, you know, this opportunity.
Tony Gryckiewicz:Yeah. My pleasure, man. It's been great. It was awesome meeting you and and we'll continue to to stay in touch and do a lot more business together and and whatever in the future. So, I all will let you go.
Tony Gryckiewicz:And again, and I will see you at the next show.
Anthony Hui:Yep. Alrighty. See you, Tony. Bye bye.
