Item: i113958

Authentic Coin of:

China – Kwangtung (Guangdong) Province
Emperor Guangxu (1875-1908)
1889 Silver 20 Fen 23mm (5.13 grams) 
.820 Silver (0.1397 oz. ASW)
Reference: Y# 196.1 (1889)
KWANG-TUNG PROVINCE 光 寶  元 緒 1 MACE AND 4.4 CANDAREENS, Dragon with pearl at centre surrounded by Chinese ideograms.
造省東廣 釐四分四錢一平庫, Inscription.

You are bidding on the exact item pictured, provided with a Certificate of Authenticity and Lifetime Guarantee of Authenticity.

Guangxu Emperor (14 August 1871 – 14 November 1908), personal name Zaitian, was the tenth Emperor of the Qing dynasty, and the ninth Qing emperor to rule over China proper. His reign lasted from 1875 to 1908, but in practice he ruled, without Empress Dowager Cixi’s influence, only from 1889 to 1898. He initiated the Hundred Days’ Reform, but was abruptly stopped when the empress dowager launched a coup in 1898, after which he became powerless and was held under house arrest until his death. His era name, “Guangxu”, means “glorious succession”.

The emperor died in 1908 and it was widely suspected at the time that he had been poisoned. A forensic examination on his remains confirmed in 2008 that the cause of death was arsenic poisoning. The level of arsenic in his remains was 2,000 times higher than normal.

<psun's chief="" legacy="" resides="" in="" his="" developing="" of="" the="" political="" philosophy="" known="" as="" three="" principles="" people:="" nationalism="" (han="" chinese="" nationalism:="" independence="" from="" imperialist="" domination="" -="" taking="" back="" power="" manchurian="" qing="" dynasty),="" democracy,="" and="" people's="" livelihood="" (just="" society).

Guangdong (Chinese: 广东) is a province in South China, located on the South China Sea coast. Traditionally romanised as Kwangtung, Guangdong surpassed Henan and Sichuan to become the most populous province in China in January 2005, registering 79.1 million permanent residents and 31 million migrants who lived in the province for at least six months of the year; the total population was 104,303,132 in the 2010 census, accounting for 7.79 percent of Mainland China’s population. This also makes it the most populous first-level administrative subdivision of any country outside the former British Raj, as its population is surpassed only by those of the Pakistani province of Punjab and the Indian states of Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh. The provincial capital Guangzhou and economic hub Shenzhen are among the most populous and important cities in China. The population increase since the census has been modest, the province registering 108,500,000 people in 2015.

China, officially the People’s Republic of China (PRC) since 1949, is a country in East Asia and the world’s most populous country, with a population of around 1.404 billion. Covering approximately 9,600,000 square kilometers (3,700,000 sq mi), it is the third- or fourth-largest country by total area, depending on the source consulted. Governed by the Communist Party of China, the state exercises jurisdiction over 22 provinces, five autonomous regions, four direct-controlled municipalities (Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, and Chongqing), and the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau.

China emerged as one of the world’s earliest civilizations, in the fertile basin of the Yellow River in the North China Plain. For millennia, China’s political system was based on hereditary monarchies, or dynasties, beginning with the semi-legendary Xia dynasty in 21st century BCE. Since then, China has expanded, fractured, and re-unified numerous times. In the 3rd century BCE, the Qin unified core China and established the first Chinese empire. The succeeding Han dynasty, which ruled from 206 BC until 220 AD, saw some of the most advanced technology at that time, including papermaking and the compass, along with agricultural and medical improvements. The invention of gunpowder and movable type in the Tang dynasty (618-907) and Northern Song (960-1127) completed the Four Great Inventions. Tang culture spread widely in Asia, as the new maritime Silk Route brought traders to as far as Mesopotamia and Horn of Africa. Dynastic rule ended in 1912 with the Xinhai Revolution, when a republic replaced the Qing dynasty. The Chinese Civil War resulted in a division of territory in 1949, when the Communist Party of China established the People’s Republic of China, a unitary one-party sovereign state on Mainland China, while the Kuomintang-led government retreated to the island of Taiwan. The political status of Taiwan remains disputed.

Since the introduction of economic reforms in 1978, China’s economy has been one of the world’s fastest-growing with annual growth rates consistently above 6 percent. As of 2016, it is the world’s second-largest economy by nominal GDP and largest by purchasing power parity (PPP). China is also the world’s largest exporter and second-largest importer of goods. China is a recognized nuclear weapons state and has the world’s largest standing army and second-largest defense budget. The PRC is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council as it replaced the ROC in 1971, as well as an active global partner of ASEAN Plus mechanism. China is also a leading member of numerous formal and informal multilateral organizations, including the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), WTO, APEC, BRICS, the BCIM, and the G20. China is a great power and a major regional power within Asia, and has been characterized as a potential superpower.