I ventured out of my usual comfort zone with the most recent purchase. The following is a replica of the silver coin used as legal tender during the Qing Dynasty. According to APMEX, there are only 1000 of these in circulation.
The obverse shows the image of the dragon with words around it.
廣東省造 - Made in the Guangdong Province
庫平 - The standard unit for metals used by the Qing Government at the time
七錢三分 - This is the Chinese characters for seven mace three candareens you see on the reverse
The reverse shows characters that give context to the time of mintage.
光緒 - The reigning Empeor's title
元寶 - The literal meaning is ingots
The Manchu script in the center says the same thing as the Chinese. I assume the English script is there to make it easier for foreign traders.
The history of the Emperor 光緒 (Guangxu) was a sad one. He tried hard to reform and modernize China but fell victim to his aunt Empress Dowager Cixi's ploys. If I were to sum up 慈禧 (Cixi), she was basically the Chinese version of Hillary Clinton in those days.
Overall, this was a fascinating piece. It was an educational moment for me when I had to look up the 庫平 (Kuping) system of measurements used during the Qing Dynasty. From my understanding, 庫平一兩, or one standard Kuping, was around 37.3g. So, 七錢三分 would be 37.3 x 0.73 = 27.229g of silver.
For simplicity, this is a pure one-ounce piece that is well above the spot price of silver. At $50 each, I wouldn't buy too many of these replicas. The reason I bought this was as a gift. I hope to bring this along during my travels next month.