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Close-Up Photo of Chinese Error Coins

From , former About.com Guide

Chinese Error Coins

A tray of error coins is photographed during Fred Weinberg's tour of the Shanghai Mint in China in 1983. The coins are made of aluminum, and represent a variety of major minting error types.

Photo courtesy of Fred Weinberg.
This is a tray of minting errors, collected by the workers at the Chinese government Mint at Shanghai. The coins are all aluminum, and look to be of the 1 or 2 Fen (or perhaps 5 Fen) denomination, none of which have been produced for more than 15 years now because they have become so small. There are a variety of major minting errors represented here, including severely off-center strikes, and multi-struck coins. Fred says he did his best to try to get permission to take a few of them home with him, but like most official government minting authorities, the Shanghai Mint wasn't about to let these fantastic errors out the door easily! So what happened next? (See the next photo...)

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