12 Valuable Chinese Coins Worth Up To $2 Million

Human civilization doesn’t get much more ancient than China, whose history dates back more than 5,000 years and whose global influence can be seen in everything from how people govern to what they eat.

China was among the earliest civilizations to mint coins, with some specimens created more than two millennia ago. You aren’t likely to come across one of those outside of a museum. But even modern Chinese coins can fetch seven figures on the collectibles market.

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You’ll find a “huge range” of Chinese coins to choose from, according to the CoinValueLookup website. Here’s a look at 12 of the most valuable Chinese coins. Estimated prices and descriptions are from CoinValueLookup. Keep in mind that the highest values are for coins in top graded condition.

This coin was minted for a provincial governor, but there are lingering questions about where it was minted. While some experts think it was made in Szechuan, others speculate that it was minted in Kweichow on “stolen machinery.” A high-grade version sold for 70,000 British pounds sterling in 2018, which would have been about $93,000 based on that year’s exchange rates.

This coin was produced for China by the Heaton Mint in Birmingham, UK, and features a unique “drunken dragon” design. It was made in different denominations but “only a handful of each” are in circulation. One version sold at auction for $88,000 in 2018, but a rare silver dollar from the same series will likely fetch more than $1 million.

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This brass 50-cent coin was struck from dies made by Otto Beh, a German manufacturer who specialized in Chinese coins. German patterns of Chinese coins are “highly sought after” by collectors. One version sold for $140,000.

Here is another design produced for the Chinese government by Great Britain’s Heaton Mint. This is a “specimen” coin highly prized by dealers and collectors and has sold for as much as $78,000.

The actual date of this coin is “shrouded in mystery,” according to CoinValueLookup. No mention of its existence was made in a 1917 article on Chinese coins, which suggests it could have been minted later. In any case, this coin has sold for more than $500,000.