From ancient times to the present, the collection circle has a large category, that is, "ancient coins", which is also the carrier of political, economic and cultural information for thousands of years, and its collection value and significance can be seen; of course, "things are rare and precious" has always been the value of antiques and cultural relics, and there is also a legendary story of "national treasure nickel coins".
Back in 1888, it was the fourteenth year of Qing Guangxu. At that time, China could be described as internal and external troubles, and various contradictions emerged in an endless stream, which gave rise to two opposing factions, namely, the "westerners" and the "conservatives."
Among them, Li Hongzhang, a minister of the "Foreign Affairs Faction", held 3 "coins" for the Guangxu Emperor to see in 1888, and hoped to pass the "currency reform" he advocated as soon as possible; these 3 coins were entrusted to the "Birmingham Mint Company" of the British Empire to mint nickel sample coins with 10, 5 and 2 cent denominations.
Friends who study history may know that the partisan struggle at the end of the Qing Dynasty was extremely fierce, and it was extremely difficult to "reform"; not to mention that Li Hongzhang wanted to "reform" the foundation of the country, and these 3 coins were all in foreign languages.
Since it is the currency of the Qing Dynasty, how can it not even have a (Manchu) Chinese character, and if this currency circulates, will it not damage the "national character"?
Another point is that at that time, the Qing Dynasty did not have nickel mines, and if it wanted to change the currency system, it was necessary to hand it over to foreigners to cast on behalf of foreigners; the Qing court not only had to pay foreigners "minting processing fees", but also had to pay nickel materials, transportation and other costs, and this "currency reform" obviously outweighed the losses.
Regardless of the necessity of this reform for the time being, no matter what, the struggle between "foreign affairs" and "old-fashioned" is inevitable. In the end, Cixi, who was still listening to the government, made up his mind and negated Li Hongzhang's "coin reform", and the 3 coin models have since disappeared; although "3 sample coins are missing", they have been rumored in the media, and have become precious collection treasures, which is later commonly known as "Birmingham coins".
Speaking of which, it's time to end, right? On the contrary, the story has only just begun at this time. In the 1980s, there was a man named "Chen Fugeng" in Shanghai, who liked to "pick up leaks" in the scrap station, especially interested in copper, iron, tin and other metals.
Realistically speaking, although there were antique collections at that time, there were not many people who studied "ancient coins", and their value was far less than that of stamps, so the waste station could often see all kinds of copper coins; "Chen Fugeng" was more special, and when everyone was collecting stamps, he collected "copper plates" and worshiped under the door of the ancient coin expert "Ma Dingxiang".
In 1982, "Chen Fugeng" spent 7 pieces on Zhongxing Road in Shanghai to collect a large jar of copper plates; at that time, "7 pieces" were not ordinary, and spent 7 pieces to buy a pile of scrap copper and rotten iron, which was even more difficult for most people to understand.
Who let "Chen Fugeng" have this hobby, and when he returned home, he busied himself with a pile of rusty copper plates, one of which was a gray-white, greasy nickel coin that caught his attention; it is reasonable to say that the Chinese dynasties used copper coins, and this nickel coin should be something relatively recent in age.
It is also curious, "Chen Fugeng" cleaned up this nickel coin, and saw that its size was similar to that of the "1 cent" coin at that time, with the number "5" printed on the front, surrounded by beads, and all over and below were foreign languages; a particularly obvious feature was that a dragon actually appeared on the back of this nickel coin, and the upper and lower ends were all "foreign codes".
This is strange, full of "foreign language", it is reasonable to say that this nickel coin is a foreign thing, but what does it mean to print "panlong"? Chen Fugeng carefully examined the English-Chinese Dictionary, and it turned out that the upper western text of the front of this nickel coin was "Birmingham Mint" and the lower end was the word "England"; the western text on the upper end of the back was "nickel coin model", and the lower end was marked with the word "kilogram".
Chen Fugeng was ecstatic, is this the "Birmingham Nickel" that Ma Dingxiang often mentioned to himself? Chen Fugeng grabbed the nickel coin and flew straight to the teacher's house.
Teacher Ma couldn't believe it after hearing it, the 3 nickel coins a hundred years ago had long disappeared, and now even foreign countries only had the "10 cents" of nickel coins; if the apprentice found that it was really one of the "3 nickel coins", it was the first time such treasures were found in China, which was called a "national treasure".
After repeated confirmation, Chen Fugeng was holding the "5 cent nickel coin" in the 3 "Birmingham nickel coins", which was later the "Longtu nickel coin model"; at this point, "Chen Fugeng" became famous, and its influence reached overseas, and even the queen of England visited China later, wanting to see this coin failed to achieve her wishes, and only got a "taunting" paper.
Drop "later" and start with December 28, 1984. A luxury car drove into the home of "Chen Fugeng", and a man who claimed to be "entrusted by the Royal Coin Society" wanted to buy the "Birmingham" 5-cent nickel coin in his hand for $100,000.
Not to mention that in 1984, even the current "100,000 US dollars" is also a huge amount of money; as a result, "Chen Fugeng" was not moved, got up to send customers and said "national treasures will never be sold."
On March 27, 1989, the "Chen Fugeng" family suddenly broke into two people, tied them up, collected two large bags of "ancient coins" and fled; fortunately, "Chen Fugeng" was not seriously injured, and promptly called the police, the incident once caused a sensation in all walks of life, because the national treasure -- "5-cent nickel coin" was also among the lost items.
Subsequently, the Shanghai police quickly set up a special case team, but after more than half a year of investigation, those "robbed ancient coins" seemed to disappear out of thin air; until the next year, a "Tiande Heavy Treasure" appeared in Fuzhou, "Chen Fugeng" suspected that this ancient coin was one of the many ancient coins he had been robbed, and followed the scouts straight to Fuzhou.
Friends who have studied "ancient coins" may know the value of "Tiande Heavy Treasure", there was once a public auction in Singapore, and it actually sold a "sky-high price" of 1.5 million Singapore dollars, after conversion, it was worth nearly 8 million yuan at that time; there is no doubt that "Tiande Heavy Treasure" can be called a precious coin, and there are not many people in China who own it, "Chen Fugeng" is one of them.
When he saw the "Tiande Heavy Treasure", Chen Fugeng recognized at a glance that it was one of the ancient coins he had been robbed; the police followed the vine and finally caught a thief on Shanghai's Yuanmingyuan Road, and then another criminal suspect was finally arrested.
Fortunately, the two thieves knew that the stakes were high and did not dare to take a shot easily, until they were caught, they had time to sell the "two large bags" of ancient coins in the future; in this way, the police successfully recovered the stolen goods, including the national treasure "Birmingham 5 Cent Nickel Coin".
It should also be emphasized that "Chen Fugeng" is well-known in the ancient coin collection circle, and he especially has studied Ming dynasty coins; it is said that his collection contains all the ancient coins of the Ming Dynasty.
The collection of "Chen Fugeng" ranges from the "Great ZhongtongBao" minted when Zhu Yuanzhang started the incident, to the "Nanming Money" minted by the "Nanming" Fuwang and other regimes after the fall of the Ming Dynasty; and even the coins minted by Li Zicheng, Zhang Xianzhong, Han Lin'er, Wu Sangui and other figures and regimes.
Just imagine, the "Tiande Heavy Treasure" is already worth millions, so there is only one "Birmingham 5 Cent Nickel Coin" in the world, and even the Queen of England can't see it, what should it be worth?