About Anthony

About Me: 

My name is Anthony Hui and I am currently a rising sophomore at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill studying Business Administration and Economics (with a strong Political Science background). Go Tar Heels! I am a numismatist--a fancy word for someone who collects, studies, and catalogs coins--or shortly, a coin collector!

I am a history-loving numismatist specializing in East Asian coins from historical China and Korea.

I have been actively collecting coins since I was in 2nd grade. I originally collected American coins with the basic 50 State Quarters to expanding my collection to Wheat Cents, Mercury Dimes, and eventually the big Morgan and Peace silver dollars! I remember going to the Borders bookstore and picking up a CoinValues magazing and dragging my finger, following along each row to see the prices of American coins. Around 8th grade, I decided to focus more on a particular area of collection---the coins of East Asia---an area in which I have cultural heritage from. As I grew older, numismatics has sparked my interest in history and political science, while enriching myself in my own cultures and beliefs. It really is truly rewarding.

With these in mind, the coins I collect today are rather niche; I collect coins that are usually machine struck or milled from the countries of China and Korea. In particular, I collect obsolete coins from Qing and Republican China along with Joseon, Empire, and Protectorate Korea. With this country group as a foundation, I have also branched out (slowly) into the realm of other areas like cast coins and a bit of paper currency. 

For a more comprehensive list of my expertise and focus, please visit my specialization page here.

Nevertheless, with my coin collecting, I really enjoy cataloging and researching my coins; I also continually strive to understand their world-shaping historical, political, and cultural contexts. For instance, sometimes, a coin would be minted in an era of reform, war, peace, famine, hyperinflation, domestic rebellion, internal turmoil, etc. It really is interesting tying the history with the politics and economics that a single coin embodies and contextualizing it within the realm of Asian history.

With my travels abroad usually during the summers, I love to visit local coin shops, auction houses, street and flea markets, and coin shows. I would wander around and go to new shops and markets to witness deals, bargain, coin hunt (for key dates and varieties) and explore the local culture simultaneously. Moreover, my travels in Hong Kong and South Korea has allowed me to meet a diverse range of coin enthusiasts and dealers, where I can learn from others and improve my expertise and focus, while sharing some of my insight as well. These friendships still affect me today as I still communicate and stay in touch with them, exchanging coin updates and news.

Since the time I started, I have around at least five or six thousand coins where I have gathered from various sources; I have also bought, sold, and traded coins through various means and platforms.

On this blog, all the coins are owned by me. Some have been sold or traded while some are within my collection, but I do not mention their current status directly. Furthermore, please understand that I do not trade or sell any coins currently on the blog. This is because my purpose is to showcase and share information to the awesome coin collecting community around the world.

Additionally, my blog features some of my historical, political science, and philosophical writings and musings, which will also be posted as blog posts. They are academic and include some of my insight and analysis.

For blog navigation, feel free to use the search-bar and find by keywords. I preferably prefer the "tag" method, which I have basically sorted my posts with China, Korea, Coin, along with other non-coin related tags like Political Science or Political Philosophy. I think clicking on a tag makes the searching and filtering much easier.

I have tried my best to present the information I have gathered and analyzed. The pictures of my coins have been carefully and clearly scanned or taken via phone by me and then uploaded. Paired with these pictures are helpful, interesting, and meaningful information and background that can assist in the attribution and identification of East Asian historical currency along with gaining an enhanced understanding of history, government, and culture! Recently, the commentary has been expanded into helpful infographics (through Canva) and interactive Google Slides presentations. I hope you enjoy my commentary that goes with it!

Thank you reader for perusing this and I hope your visit to my site was worthwhile! I wish you learned something new! Additionally, if you like the numismatic information I present, feel free to subscribe to my blog via the email feature, where you will be notified of any new posts! I try my best to post consistently and regularly. There are some times where I do not post either because I am busy with school work or having new coins being in stock. 


For the allure of numismatics!


Anthony Hui

Blog Founder and Chief Editor




Additional Information:
  • Please follow my coin Instagram: @anthonythecoinman, where I post some more of my coins. I may bring some of those over to this blog and write about it more here too!
  • My Numista (online coin database), which is occasionally updated with the coins I have ( I am also in the process of cleaning up some of my stock and adding new coins) is here: Numista









Hello there! Here's the Numismatist! Nice to meet you. :-)