10 Cash - Guangxu Mule, Kiangnan, with year

A mule in the strict numismatic sense: the obverse and reverse dies were drawn from two different intended coin types, paired either by accident or deliberate expediency during a period when the Kiangnan mint was managing overlapping die inventories under considerable production pressure. The Qing provincial mints of this period were not operating with the precision of a centralized authority — die mixing was a documented hazard, not a rarity. What makes this piece catalogued under separate Y# references is precisely that irregularity: neither parent type, but a hybrid with its own identity.