Chekiang (Zhejiang) was among the provincially autonomous mints operating under the late Qing monetary reform push, and pattern issues from this period rarely made it to production — most were struck in tiny quantities for official review and subsequently lost, melted, or absorbed into court collections. Kann's cataloguing of this specific piece as 121-I signals a distinct die pairing within a broader family of Chekiang trial strikes, very few of which saw circulation of any kind.
The 1902 date places this squarely in the period when the Qing central government was attempting to standardize provincial coinage following the chaos of the Boxer Uprising indemnity negotiations.
Chekiang (Zhejiang) was among the provincially autonomous mints operating under the late Qing monetary reform push, and pattern issues from this period rarely made it to production — most were struck in tiny quantities for official review and subsequently lost, melted, or absorbed into court collections. Kann's cataloguing of this specific piece as 121-I signals a distinct die pairing within a broader family of Chekiang trial strikes, very few of which saw circulation of any kind.
The 1902 date places this squarely in the period when the Qing central government was attempting to standardize provincial coinage following the chaos of the Boxer Uprising indemnity negotiations.