Specifications
- Denomination
- 1 Dollar (1 Yuan)
- Years of issue
- 1934
- Composition
- 90% Silver, 10% Copper
- Weight
- 26.73 g
- Diameter
- 39.5 mm
- Edge
- Reeded
- Mintage
- 128740000
Melt value: $49.85
Year 23 of the Republic — the largest junk dollar issue of 1934, including the famous 1949 U.S.-mint restrikes.
History
- The Year 23 (1934) junk dollar, KM-Y345 / L&M-110 / Kann-624, was the largest issue of China’s national silver dollar series (Heritage Auctions; Wikipedia, accessed 2026-09-16)
- Master dies for the Year 23 coinage were produced by the Philadelphia Mint; the Shanghai Central Mint struck up to 210,000 coins per working day, and Eduard Kann praised the excellent quality of the coinage (Wikipedia, accessed 2026-09-16)
- Kann records 98,740,000 pieces struck from May 1934 to December 1935; about 30,000,000 more dated Year 23 were restruck in 1949 at the Philadelphia, Denver and San Francisco mints, arriving in Hong Kong in June–July 1949 for shipment to Guangzhou — NGC and Heritage catalog the combined figure of 128,740,000 (Wikipedia; NGC, accessed 2026-09-16)
- Small additional 1949 productions took place at Canton — including mules pairing junk, Yuan Shikai and memento dies, with Kann estimating at most 2,000,000 junk dollars there — as well as at Taipei and possibly Chengdu (Wikipedia, accessed 2026-09-16)
- The reverse omits the birds and rising sun of the Year 21 first issue (Wikipedia, accessed 2026-09-16)
- A 1935 half-dollar pattern of the design was prepared but never circulated, after China abandoned the silver standard in November 1935 (Wikipedia, accessed 2026-09-16)
- The Year 23 and Year 21 junk dollars rank among the most commonly counterfeited of all Chinese coins, per NGC (NGC, accessed 2026-09-16)
Key dates and varieties
- Year 23 (1934) — 98,740,000 struck 1934–35, plus about 30,000,000 U.S.-mint restrikes dated Year 23 in 1949; 128,740,000 cataloged in total (Wikipedia; NGC, accessed 2026-09-16)
- 1949 Philadelphia/Denver/San Francisco restrikes — same Year 23 date but U.S.-mint origin; a key study point for specialists (NGC, accessed 2026-09-16)
- 1949 Canton mules pairing junk, Yuan Shikai and memento dies — rare mint errors of the Civil War period (Wikipedia, accessed 2026-09-16)
Specifications
- Composition: Silver, .900 fine (NGC, accessed 2026-09-16).
- Diameter: 39.5 mm (Wikipedia, accessed 2026-09-16).
- Edge: Reeded (Wikipedia, accessed 2026-09-16).
- Weight: 26.73 g; ASW 0.7734 oz (Heritage Auctions, accessed 2026-09-16).
Collector notes
- NGC ranks Year 23 and Year 21 junk dollars among the most commonly counterfeited Chinese coins — buy graded examples and verify the certificate number online.
- Weigh the coin: 26.73 g at .900 fine and 39.5 mm diameter are the hard checks fakes most often fail.
- Remember that about 30 million Year 23 pieces are 1949 U.S.-mint restrikes, so ‘original 1934 strike’ claims need provenance, not just a date.
- Yunnan and other regional variants exist within the Year 23 issue and can carry premiums — attribute the variety before pricing.
Market check
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