5 Fen - Guangxu Circled dragon

Kiangnan's provincial mint opened in 1897 under Zhang Zhidong's modernization push, importing British machinery from the Birmingham Mint to produce coinage that could compete with the flood of foreign silver flooding treaty-port commerce. The 5 fen denomination was effectively dead on arrival — too light to be trusted by merchants and too small to matter in the rough arithmetic of street trade. Most examples show negligible wear not because they were preserved, but because they were hoarded, ignored, or melted almost immediately after issue.