1923 Tsao Kun Dollar

Specifications

Denomination: 1 dollar
Series: Republic of China portrait dollars
Years of issue: 1923
Composition: 100% Silver
Key mintages: Mintage unverified in consulted sources; weight, diameter, edge, designer unverified; KM numbers unverified — use L&M-958 (civilian) / L&M-959 (military), Kann-677 (civilian)

No freely licensed photo located (2026-09-16) — illustration placeholder AI-generated illustration — not a photograph of a genuine coin.

L&M-958/959 · twin 1923 commemoratives of China's bribery-elected president — NGC's key diagnostic: genuine fields are dead flat.

History

Tsao Kun (also romanized Cao Kun) was president of the Republic of China for just over a year starting in 1923; soon after his elevation he commissioned a pair of silver dollars at the Tientsin mint (NGC; Heritage Auctions, accessed 2026-09-16).
The civilian-dress dollar commemorates the promulgation of the new constitution by the Peking Senate in 1923; the military-uniform dollar recognizes his election (NGC; Heritage Auctions, accessed 2026-09-16).
His presidency was overshadowed by the bribery scandal that had secured his election, and he was toppled by the Beijing Coup the following year (Heritage Auctions, accessed 2026-09-16).
The civilian type catalogs as L&M-958 / Kann-677 and the military-uniform type as L&M-959 (Sedwick & Associates; NGC; Spink, accessed 2026-09-16).

Two issued types: civilian dress (constitution commemorative, L&M-958) and military uniform (election commemorative, L&M-959) — both ND (1923) (NGC, accessed 2026-09-16).
The gold specimen pattern dollar (KM-Pn67, civilian dress) is the elite rarity of the series — Heritage offered one in UNC Details (Heritage Auctions, accessed 2026-09-16).

COUNTERFEIT DIAGNOSTIC (NGC): genuine examples have very characteristic flat fields owing to an extremely shallow die radius — counterfeit coins almost always show a measurably greater degree of concavity than genuine examples; most common fakes are transfer-die and cast counterfeits (NGC, accessed 2026-09-16).
Name spelling: ‘Tsao Kun’ (Wade-Giles, used by Heritage/NGC) and ‘Cao Kun’ (pinyin, used by Spink) refer to the same person, 曹锟 — keep the entry title as given (Heritage Auctions; Spink, accessed 2026-09-16).
Value factors: a civilian-dress example in PCGS Genuine Cleaned AU Detail sold for HK$160,000 at Spink; an UNC Details (repaired) civilian dollar was estimated at $10,000–$15,000 — cleaning/repair details cut deeply into value (Spink; Sedwick & Associates, accessed 2026-09-16).
KM numbers for the silver issues were not verifiable in consulted sources — only L&M/Kann references are given; do not cite a KM number (NGC; Heritage Auctions; Spink, accessed 2026-09-16).