The Kiangnan Mint opened in 1897 under the supervision of foreign technical staff, and its early pattern strikes were exploratory — testing both machinery capability and acceptable design vocabulary before provincial coinage was formally standardized. These 1898 copper yuan patterns were never approved for circulation; the Qing government ultimately settled on silver as the metal for large-denomination provincial coinage, rendering the copper trials obsolete almost immediately after striking.
Two KM pattern numbers reflect documented die variations between known examples, though the total surviving population across both is extremely small.
The Kiangnan Mint opened in 1897 under the supervision of foreign technical staff, and its early pattern strikes were exploratory — testing both machinery capability and acceptable design vocabulary before provincial coinage was formally standardized. These 1898 copper yuan patterns were never approved for circulation; the Qing government ultimately settled on silver as the metal for large-denomination provincial coinage, rendering the copper trials obsolete almost immediately after striking.
Two KM pattern numbers reflect documented die variations between known examples, though the total surviving population across both is extremely small.