1 Yuan / 1 Dollar Pattern, Founding of the Republic: Yuan Shikai, copper

Yuan Shikai's dollar series of 1914 was the product of a deliberate centralization effort — his government contracted the Cranfield & Co. engravers via the Tianjin Mint to produce a unified national coinage that would displace the chaotic provincial issues still circulating across China. Patterns were struck in multiple metals to evaluate the design before silver production began in earnest. The copper examples were never intended for circulation; they exist as approval pieces from the approval and rejection cycle that preceded the issued coinage.

The silver "Yuan Shikai dollar" went on to become arguably the dominant trade coin in Republican China for decades. This copper pattern did not.