Need help identifying solid 24K gold ornate 6 ounce Chinese key

[crhstreetwalker]

Hello everyone, new member here. I recently acquired this solid 23.52K to 23.76K gold ornate 6 ounce (187 grams exactly) Chinese key piece. The key is absolutely breathtaking and is quite impressive to hold. It's also over twelve inches in length. I believe it's Chinese because of the ying and yang symbols on the bow. I recently shot it with an XRF gun to verify it's gold content as 98-99% pure. A small file mark confirmed its solidity.

The hallmarks are small and hard to read. There are four markings on the teeth of the key: two small unidentifiable hallmarks, what appears to be a "9 9" (which I presume to be the purity of the gold,) and a illegible 5 digit number. The number is either 18735 or 13735. This is only my opinion as again it's extremely illegible.

Would anyone happen to know what this might be or what it might be worth? My gut instinct tells me this is a behemoth piece. One simply doesn't manufacture a solid gold, 187 gram key with such beautiful ornate characteristics for no reason. I believe the piece to be vintage, as the gentlemen who owned it acquired it long ago.

Thanks for any help you might be able to offer.

 

[kgizo]

I have no idea, but it’s interesting. You may want to move this to the Hangout forum if you don’t get any responses after a few days. Hangout gets more traffic and perhaps someone might know about gold keys. You could also send pics to an auction house expressing possible interest in selling it and they might be able to tell you something about it.