Chopmark Lookup
Found a chopmark on a coin and want to know which character it is? Draw what you see in the box below. The ten closest matching characters update as you draw, and any chopmarks with example pictures will be shown below.
Lookup by drawing
Closest matches
Draw a chopmark in the canvas to see the ten closest matched Hanzi characters.
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Lookup by Hanzi character
Enter a Hanzi character on the leftabove to see chopmark and seal script pictures for that character.
Helpful tips when drawing:
The better you are at understanding the individual parts of the characters, the better you will be able to draw the chopmark successfully, and to find a match. One way to get better at recognizing the parts is to study the radicals.
If you think the chopmark is distinctly Japanese Kanji, you can draw it here:
Draw Japanese Kanji
If you think a chopmark is Cursive/Grass script or some form of calligraphy, and you have a likely candidate, you can enter it here:
Chinese Calligraphy Generator
Look through the pages on this site, I've identified many of the chopmarks on these coins, and looking through a few examples should help you get the feel for what you're looking at on your coin. There are many chopmarks, but not as much variety as you might think, so I may show a chopmark that matches a chopmark on your coin.
Keep in mind that many chopmarks do not resemble any modern Chinese characters and you may not find a match. Don't be too frustrated, this happens quite often. Sometimes the chopmark is ancient and we have lost the meaning. Another possibility is the mark is a pseudo-character that only had meaning locally. For some chopmarks, we will never know the meaning, just move on to another one if you get stuck.