I need some advice from specialists in Chinese coins.
I found a lucky bargain bin find ($6 of silver for 30 cents!) that is listed twice in the catalog, once under China - Empire and once under China - Republic. My SCWC 1901-2000 lists it under "Restruck Imperial Coinage".
Which is more accurate and the better place to enter my coin? Is one of these pages a duplicate that should be merged with the other?
Actually, there are multiple problems with the page. It lists Y# 257, 257.1, 257.2, and 257.3 all on the same page, but according to the SCWC the silver purity was different: 0.800 for Y# 257 and 257.1, and only 0.500 for 257.2 and 257.3. So there should be at least two different pages IMO.
Any thoughts on this? I ended up entering mine in the China-Republic page, since that seemed to be more consistent with how the SCWC lists it, but I'd be happy to have a fuller understanding of the circumstances surrounding the minting of these coins.
Even without being a specialist of Chinese coinage, it seems to me that a coin of the post-1911 era belongs to the Republic (Pu Yi, the last emperor, was overthrown in 1911). In addition, the Republic page is more complete than the Empire one, though some extra details could be transferred from the Empire to the Republic page before deletion.
EDIT: I've just sent modifications to the Catalogue referees.
The last emperor of Qing dynasty was Puyi. At the time of reign he was only 3 years old. Then in 1911 was forced give up the reign by Yuan Shi-kai (The fat man on the China republic dollar).
OK, I think I've found the problem. For some reason, the catalogue dates the coin to the 1911-1915 period, but in Yeoman's, 1979 edition, #257 is dated to 1908 ─ actually "ND (1908)", i.e. "No Date (1908)". My theory is that the coin has been reassigned to the 1911-1915 period in a later edition, so someone used the old Yeoman (like mine) to place the coin under Imperial China (with the dates later corrected), and someone else used a more recent version and placed the same coin (and variants) under the Republic. Note that the old Yeoman gives only #257 (as on the Empire page in the catalogue) and not #257.1-2-3 (as on the Republic page), so the extra numbers must come from a more recent edition. You see?
So, if someone has a more recent edition of Yeoman, let us know! Note that in my Krause 2008 I couldn't even find that coin, so something is going on...
It's in my Krause, under China - Republic Yunnan province, I think. I'll try to take a photo of the page and post later. It's listed under "Restruck Imperial Coinage".
Ah! If so, it would belong to the Republic. Obviously, some research has been done on those coins since the 70s or 80s. Once we know, a note should be added to the catalogue page so that no one goes through the same process again.
Someone updated the catalogue with my suggestions, but without deleting either of the two pages yet.
Let's wait for Jesse11 to tell us more about how it is catalogued in Krause, but I'm pretty confident we need to keep the Republic page and delete the Empire page.
In my Krause 2008, they say something about Yunnan, but then there is no listing for that province, and I browsed three times and never found Y# 257 or 257.1, 2, 3. I suppose Jesse's Krause is more recent.
It is listed under Republic and then the subheading of Restruck Imperial Coinage. To me it looks like there should be two different pages, one for Y257 and Y257.1 for 0.800 silver, and another page for Y257.2 and Y257.3 for 0.500 silver.
I just sent a revised form (Republic) to Cyrillius. So the Empire form should definitely be deleted or else the new Republic form transferred to the Empire if the Numista team think it's easier to retrieve the coin this way.
I did include a note to explain what's going on, so others after us will be able to make sense of it without going through the whole process again (if it needs to be translated into French, let me know). I also added descriptions to the different variants (257.1-3).
I do think the photos on the Empire page are better than the ones on the Republic page (higher grade that shows details better), so maybe they can be moved over?
By the way, I copied the information from Krause, but I have no idea what's the difference between Y# 257.2: ND (1920-31), 0.500 silver and Y# 257.3: ND (1949), 0.500 billon.
