Chopmarks are, apparently, my new fascination in the world of Numismatics.
Trade in the East became really popular, and so Western countries started producing silver trade dollars just to export to China. The most popular ones are the Austrian 1780 Maria Theresas, the Mexican 8 reales pieces, British Trade Dollars, and even the badly reputed US Trade Dollars. There were many others.
The Chinese didn't really know what to think about Western money, so they treated them like oddly shaped silver bullion bars. Not all countries used the same weights or fineness of silver, and so Chinese merchants came up with a very complicated system of testing the coins. Each merchant would have his own punch, or "chop" (Which came from the Indian word Chappa) that he used to expose the interior metal of the coin. (Sometimes, fakes would be filled with lead instead of silver.) Then, each transaction following, the Chinese merchant's chop would guarantee that the coin was worth accepting in trade.
Some of these coins became nearly indistinguishable due to all the chops on the faces. I've been collecting these pieces for a few months now. Have like, five of them. They're beautiful pieces of history to own.
