Chinese leprosy tokens group in Album’s September sale
- Published: Sep 3, 2024, 5 PM
A set of tokens used in the 1980s at a hospital colony for patients with leprosy is among many highlights in Stephen Album Rare Coins’ auction No. 50, crossing the block Sept. 19 to 21.
These five tokens were issued circa 1980 for use in the Qinhu Leprosy Hospital in Jiangsu Province, a coastal Chinese province north of Shanghai. They are cataloged as numbers MGM-150 to MGM-154 in The Numismatic Aspects of Leprosy, by Roger R. McFadden, John Grost, and Dennis F. Marr, published in 1993.
Qinhu Hospital was founded in the 1950s and at one point had 600 patients. Though leprosy is now curable and no longer faces quite the same social stigma it once carried, 45 elderly former patients still lived at the nearby “Leprosy Village” as of 2019, having spent decades isolated from their families and society.
“The People’s Republic of China may be the only country presently using special money for its leprosy patients,” the authors write.
The tokens described in the section for China in the book were obtained in 1985 from a doctor in China treating Hansen’s disease (as the illness is also termed). “The tokens ... were in use in his hospital at that time,” according to the book. “Apparently tokens are used in other leprosy hospitals in China. Over 800 leprosy hospitals exist in China and the number of institutions that use money substitutes is unknown.”
These five tokens are from the Dr. Robert A. Rosenfeld Collection, which features prominently in this auction.
Token grades, pre-sale estimates
The opaque light red plastic 1-fen token (MGM-150) is graded About Uncirculated 58 by Professional Coin Grading Service, and has a pre-sale estimate of $300 to $500.
The opaque light blue plastic 5-fen token (MGM-151) is also graded AU-58 by PCGS, and has a pre-sale estimate of $400 to $600.
The opaque blue plastic 1-jiao token (MGM-152) is graded AU-55 by PCGS, and has a pre-sale estimate of $450 to $650.
The opaque clear plastic 5-jiao token (MGM-153) is graded AU-53 by PCGS, and has a pre-sale estimate of $500 to $700.
The largest denomination from this set, the 1-yuan token, is opaque clear plastic and colored red. It is graded AU-50 by PCGS and has a pre-sale estimate of $550 to $750.
These tokens are rather scarce, as evidenced by the fact that the auction firm has rarely offered them, only ever handling 11 total pieces across all five denominations, including these five examples.
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