I am not a medal collector, I have about five in total. Usually varying in the number of sails up and the direction the ship is pointing They are all of the Chinese Junk Keying's arrival in the United Kingdom in 1848. This junk was bought illegally just after the opium war, a crew of Chinese sailors was tricked into sailing it (They were told they were going on a much shorter trip to Java) it was the first junk on record to ever reach the USA and then it carried on to the UK. Most of the crew jumped ship in America. In England it was visited by the Queen, and was one of the largest tourist attractions before being towed up the Mersey and disappearing into obscurity. Anyway, the Brits at that time were mad on the commemorative medals and they put out about 10 different types. Singapore also put out a medal based on the journey more recently. Source: http://www.singaporebullion.com/?paged=10 From my understanding, the Chinese are not particularly interested in Museums and Maritime Museums even less so. I have been to the Maritime Museum in Macau (Portuguese influences) and I missed out on going to the one in Hong Kong (English influences). Does anyone know of any Chinese medals with Junks in general or the "Keying' in particular?
Interesting rounds / tokens / medals. Are those the 5 you own? For me, one of my own newer personal criteria for buying a medal is the amount of relief it has in the design. If it is not very high relief, I probably won't touch it and I'll kick it rolling down the road of "see ya". I know one other member here who may agree with me on this....Gatito, you on board with high relief or the highway? I'd definitely be interested in a Chinese medal depicting ships / sailing vessels so long as the relief was substantial and the design masterful and appealing. .
Mega extreme ultra-high relief, or bust! My 1st two China medals are the 2012 God of Wealth set (in 1-oz Ag) that barsenault recently shared in brass. I like them, and although relatively high relief compared to your average coin, are nothing like an Emei or Wutai from Shenyang. I've got enough flat coins. For China medals, only going for the chunky stuff that really pops. But, to each his own..
The top 3 are similar to the ones I own, the bottom one is a modern 'copy' of the design of one of the older medals. These were tourist souvenirs sold on the streets back in the day, mass produced and never really meant to be collected so the quality isn't that high and the relief is pretty good for their age but not spectacular. They were minted before the ship even hit the UK shores and were based on newspaper descriptions from America, which is why it looks like a floating banana. I didn't think the Chinese would want to commemorate the theft of a junk after their defeat in the opium wars and the subsequent kidnapping of 30 or so of their countrymen, but you never know! Cheers
