The authorities have confiscated a large cache of counterfeit Zihnan Temple (紫南宮) Year of the Horse commemorative coins from an online platform in an operation targeting knock-offs of the temple’s merchandise.
Zihnan Temple, an Earth God (土地公) temple in Nantou County’s Jhushan Township (竹山), is among the most popular temples in Taiwan where people pray for wealth.
Its Chinese zodiac-themed commemorative coin set, also known as the “mother coin” (錢母), is believed to bring wealth in the new year and is highly popular among its faithful.
Photo: Chen Fang-li, Taipei Times
This year’s edition includes commemorative gold or silver coins and carved wooden horses, the temple said, adding that the items are given away for free and are trademarked, and that no organization has been authorized to sell them.
Police yesterday said they had traced the sale of counterfeit coins online to several distributors and confiscated 434 such coins from a warehouse in Taichung, following multiple reports from members of the public about having bought fake coins.
The people behind the forgery scheme have not yet been apprehended, police said.
Temple officials who were allowed to examine the fakes found a large number of inaccuracies that indicate poor workmanship by the counterfeiters, they added.
The temple identified several issues with the counterfeit items, such as the fake carved wooden horse lacking teeth present in the genuine sculpture, the plastic material affixing the coins to the sculpture being bright red instead of maroon, a visible line of glue between the bag of treasures and the horse’s back, and the surface of the coin being dull, rather than having a mirror finish.
The counterfeit coins were also poorly minted, with badly set fonts, and the cloth packaging material is orange instead of green, the temple added.
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