John Ferguson's Chinese coin & charm collection

I have never actively collected Chinese coins so I know very little about them. I also had difficulty finding information as there aren't many experts on the subject, in Scotland anyway! This is the main reason why I wanted to build this web site, so I could learn something about my collection and possibly help other people looking for information on Chinese coins. Everything I do know I have learned from Vladimir Beljaev's web site and working with him here.

Here's how I came by my collection:

My mother and father lived in Hong Kong during most of the 1960's, I was born there in 1966. They had a good friend there named Willie Howard who's friend's father had died (I don't know his name). The old man was Chinese and had built up a collection of coins and charms over the years. His son took a few of the coins to a dealer who told him they weren't originals but replicas. He was not interested in the coins so decided to sell them all as a collection rather than individually just to get them off his hands. Willie Howard asked my father and another friend if they would like to each buy half the collection as it was a very good price. They agreed and the son started bringing them out of the bank vault. He had no idea how many there were. We had moved back to Scotland by this time (This was in 1975) so Willie sent us half the coins in a box. There was no catalogue or listing of any sort.

All the coins and charms are mounted on plaques numbered 1 to 60 making a total of 1187 items. They appear to be in no sensible order or arrangement. My mother took a few plaques to the U.S.A, where she now lives, to mount in frames to display on her walls. The remainder of the coins and charms are on this web site for you to view. I am trying to find out what ever happened to the other half of the collection.

John Ferguson

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