Photo courtesy of Jinghua Shei.
Counterfeit iron and bronze coins made by a major Chinese fake coin operation.
One of the most amusing ironies in this Chinese counterfeiting business (if any humor can be found in it at all,) is that these counterfeiters make and sell a vast number of fake Chinese antiquites. This is ironic because genuine Chinese antiquites are very common in China. Farmers find them in their fields every season. Graveyards have been found that contain literally millions upon millions of ancient Chinese coins and artifacts. However, the penalty for exporting these genuine cultural heritage items can be death, but the penalty for exporting replicas is only that you have to pay your business profit taxes like everyone else.