Created in 1897 at the instigation of the General Iktangga (依克唐阿),
governor of the Fengtien province, the bureau was destined to modernize
the provincial coinage. An early set of dies was commissionned from the
Anqing (安庆) mint in Anhwei (安徽), and German-made
steam-powered machinery were brought from Tianjin.
The early test issues
using the An Hui dies were denominated in maces and candareens, and
were designed after the Kwantung dollar. With the success of the Peiyang arsenal
dollars, subsequent issues were however redesigned and the first
emission meant for circulation in 1898 features a reverse bearing the
characteristic circular manchu writings in the style of the contemporary
Beiyang coins.
The last emission, in 1899, has a very similar design. As far as I
know, three dies were used for the 25th year of Guang Xu series. The
coin I bought is of the first type, as seen below:
Fengtien dollar - single ring (单圈版) with error in FUNG
Fengtien dollar (obverse)
The first set of die used has a single dotted ring around the
denomination on the reverse (单圈版 in Chinese). The reverse has an obvious
error in the typography of the province name, with a huge empty space
between the F and U of FUNG TIEN. The strike is also
noticeably weak from the G to the T.
On the obverse, this die is very
different from the subsequent ones. The dragon face is beautiful, with
some relief on the sides of the dragon nose and a large, “smiling”
mouth. The fireball at the center is ornamented with a wide, incomplete
spiral probably resulting from a weak strike.
The second strike features a new dragon design; the reverse issues were also partially fixed:
Fengtien dollar - single ring (单圈版)
The province name on the reverse is now correctly typographied, but
the strike is still weak on the area from the G to the T. The new dragon
design is very different from the previous issue, with a flatter face
and a thinner mouth. The spiral on the fireball is complete this time,
running all the way to the center.
Fengtien Dollar - double circle (双圈版)
The last emission tries again to correct the problems of the reverse, keeping the new dragon design.
As seen here, the G and T are indeed slightly stronger, but the end
of “TIEN” is weaker, while it was crisp in the previous strikes… It
seems that like the Kiangnan mint, the early Shenyang mint had troubles with the die adjustement and thus produced weakly struck coins.
A solid circle was added around the denomination, inside the inner dotted circle.
This strike is known as the “Linear circle within dotted circle” die, or 双圈版 in Chinese.
Fengtien dollar - linear circle within dotted circle (双圈版)
After this third strike, the mint machinery was seized by the tsarist
Russian army and the Shenyang machine bureau was burned down… The
province of Fengtien (nowadays Liao Ning) was indeed going through dark
times. Already the theater of the first Sino-Japanese war in 1895, it
was then the scene of the conflict between the Russians controlling the
leased territory of Liao Tung, and the Japanese army, leading to the Russo-Japanese war.
The mint at the Shenyang machine bureau was briefly brought back online
in 1903 after years of reconstruction slowed down by the Boxer
rebellion.
Eventually, the province fell under Japanese control, later becoming part of the Manchukuo puppet state.
The Japanese army and investors continued to develop heavy industries
in the region, furthering the move toward automatization that had begun
in 1897 with the creation of the Fengtien machine bureau.
