Lot 256
China, gilded brass Cent Trial - extremely rare
British, Ancient & World Coins - Auction 131 | C26005
Auction: 22 July 2026 10.30 BST
Description
China, gilded brass Cent Trial, ND (c. 1895), Birmingham mint. Arms of Birmingham, THE MINT BIRMINGHAM around, pellet stop punctuation, rev. CENT in wreath, SPECIMEN PIECE above, edge plain, 38mm, 20.82g (Sweeny 21‑2; cf. Tansley 493‑4). Extremely Fine, gilded. Pierced for suspension with a gilded loop, VERY RARE and interesting trial piece ‑ similar to a uniface example (Sweeny 22) graded NGC Details, that hammered for $2,200 in Stack's Bowers, April 2021.
Ex. Noonan's, Auction 137, 21 September 2016, lot 914.
According to Richard N.J. Wright in his work ‘The Modern Coinage of China 1866‑1949: The Evidence in Western Archives’ (1977), he quotes a passage in a letter from the Birmingham Mint indicating that the Mint was involved with the production of dies for the Chinese coins in 1895, and it was this authors' opinion that these ‘specimen pieces’ were produced as a demonstration that the dollar presses ordered by China, “performed to specification and that the mating of these several obverse and reverse dies would seem to support such a conclusion."
Also, in his book, one of the main references "A Numismatic History of the Birmingham Mint", author James O. Sweeny lists these among several other similar issues as trial or advertising pieces struck at the Birmingham Mint with regard to their producing dollar dies for China.
