Lucky token piece for Gamsun (金山) Restaurant

何氏币

In the late 19th and early 20th century, Chinese cast coins, especially from Qing Dynasty, were often used by Chinese-American business in US as advertising token by inscribing information related to their business, such as name, address etc on these coins.

Posted here is one such example. It is a lucky token for Gamsun Restaurant struck on a cast coin of "光绪通宝".



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Gamsun Restaurant ( Gamsun is the English transliteration of Cantonese 金山--(literally meaning Gold Mountain)) operated at 21 Hudson street in Boston during the 1940s and 50s, before being sold to make way for what is now New Shanghai Restaurant.

Chinese Americans in Boston trace their historical origins to pioneering settlements of merchants, workers, and students in different parts of New England. After the 1880s, hundreds of Chinese arrived in Boston. Beginning as a bachelor male-dominated society, the Chinese in Boston gradually developed stronger bonds of family and community life. Spared natural disasters that characterized the Chinese immigrant experience in the West, Boston's Chinatown nonetheless faced challenges of urban renewal and environmental degradation. Through their participation in community organizations, merchant activities, educational opportunities, and civic protests, the Chinese in Boston persevered, simultaneously maintaining their Chinese identity and acculturating into America. They formed a close-knit community that distinguished Boston's Chinatown as one of the oldest and most enduring Chinese neighborhoods on the East Coast.

In early 20th century, Boston’s Chinatown ranked third in size among United States' Chinese community, trailing only of San Francisco and New York. Popular Chinatown restaurants during the 1930s and 1940s included the Good Earth, Gamsun, China House Restaurant and the Cathay House. During the 1950s and 1960s, restaurants in Chinatown were quite popular and Chinese restaurants were standards like Cantonese lobster, steak kew, and sweet-and-sour pork. The restaurant tended to maintain a traditional appearance, with decorations of pagodas, banners, musical instruments, red lanterns and golden dragons. They adopted the twentieth-century convention of installing booths. Yet many Chinese restaurants were simply inexpensive, utilitarian eateries, which tended to be near the bottom of the restaurant hierarchy.

亚高

The circle chopmark is vey regular, interesting.