94 replies to this topic

[Liang Jieming]

Leather notes during the Han dynasty?  Interesting.  Where can I get more info on this?

Jieming
http://groups.yahoo....ragonSeedLegacy

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118 BC: Leather Money
Leather money was used in China in the form of one-foot-square pieces of white deerskin with colorful borders. This could be considered the first documented type of banknote.

Jieming
http://groups.yahoo....ragonSeedLegacy

[Liang Jieming]

I think China should reissue coins with square holes in the middle. That would really be cool, and show the continuity of Chinese currency over the last 2000+ years.

Jieming

[Snafu]

Amounts did vary, but often times a string of cash was comprised of 1,000 coins. I believe government accountants used it as an exact denomination.

[Liang Jieming]

Amounts did vary, but often times a string of cash was comprised of 1,000 coins. I believe government accountants used it as an exact denomination.

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Here's a good website that shows the manufacture of coins and how they are later strung together into standard denominations before circulating.

http://www.history.u...anufacture.html

Jieming

[Snafu]

Here's a good website that shows the manufacture of coins and how they are later strung together into standard denominations before circulating.

http://www.history.u...anufacture.html

Jieming

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Great site!

[bejean]

Hi guys had lurked in this fine forum for a bit and finally got to registering.

Anyway would like experts here to answer these questions that has been bothering a newbie like myself :

1. How much is a tael of gold / silver as compared to today's currency? Also how much is a copper coin as compared to today's currency?

2. Understood the chinese had used coins and gold/silver taels but i also seen bank notes of some sort. It looks like a scrap piece of paper with a goverment stamp on it. Wouldn't forgery be a big problem?

Thank you guys!

[snowybeagle]

Different dynasties had somewhat different weightage for their taels as well as actual composition of the so-called gold or silver sycees.

As for paper money, we had a discussion on that sometime ago, I can't remember now which folder though.

Recommend that you take sometime to browse through the different folders and see if the questions you have had already been raised before.

[Yun]

Here I go again, trawling for old threads. Thank God for the search engine on this site.

First, on the tael question, see these sites:
http://www.answers.com/topic/tael
http://www.charm.ru/library/faq002.htm
(this Russian site on Chinese coins is quite good, I just found it: http://www.charm.ru )

There were two older threads on Chinese money, and I've merged them with this one.

[shawn]

Can anyone share with me the history of Chinese currency like the gold and silver ingots, small silver "stones"? How did these form of money in China appear?

[orchid_dreams]

here's a link that may help:
http://www.travelchi...us/currency.htm

[Centaur]

here's a link that may help:
http://www.travelchi...us/currency.htm

Hey, Orchid Dream, thanks for the link... it is indeed interesting.

[shawn]

What about the ingots? And also the silver "stones" which were also used as currency?

[orchid_dreams]

What about the ingots? And also the silver "stones" which were also used as currency?

what do you mean?
ingots as in taels of silver?

[Lin Duanwen]

I think he refers "yuan bao" as ingots and "sui yin" as silver "stones".

[Ashura]

Well silver and gold are just precious metal and everybody loves them.

Actually they were not used as floating currency but as hard currency,as they were more used for insurance purposes. An ordinary person would not carry a Liang of Gold or Silver. For example, the emperor may give some ingots of gold to a official, these ingots however could not be used to buy stuff for example a coke in the market, as no one could break that up. Usually ingots of gold were used in big transaction, for example when the government needed to award the troops, a shipment of gold would be sent and each soldier would receive his share. Once a soldier received his share of gold, which is now a small amount, he could go exchange it intofloating currency, ie, the bronze or some kind of metal coins and later paper currency.

Silver and gold were only the base of the tokens.