When did banks first appear in China? Banks were called "Qian Zhuang" (钱庄) in the past... the establishment of banks seem to improve the commerce in ancient China times.

What about money? I supposed that paper money was only used after han-dynasty, after paper was invented.

What are their history?

Well, China was the first civilization to use cowrie shells as money, about 3400 years ago (Shang). A few centuries later, the Chinese began using stone, clay and bone imitations and then bronze/copper imitations of cowries (late Shang and early Zhou), and then bronze coins shaped like spades (Zhou) and knives (Warring States). It should be pointed out that Chinese coinage mostly tended to be made out of base, not precious, metals. The usage of round coins with holes in the middle began around the end of the Warring States period and with the establishment of the Qin dynasty. Wang Mang attempted to reintroduce spades, but it didn't quite catch on. The Later Han dynasty used metal coins as well as printed leather notes (the invention of printed currency without paper). Paper currency, I believe, was introduced in China starting in the 800s AD.

Thanks for the info.. yeah.. I seem to recall that paper currency only started in Tang period..

Hmmm why do I recall that paper currency started in the Song instead???..... or you could be referring to Fei Chian 飛錢but that's more of a traveler's check system than paper currency..... i though paper currency first started in Song 's Sichuan area as a trust system between busniessman (kinda like checks) and then later became national currency....or am i mixing up times here...

wasn't there key money? and I think in RTK they had the term strings of Cash whats that all about?

The string term comes because the offical han coin is a round bronze coin with a square hole in the center...... when carried in large number a very common practice is to tie a string through the holes of the coins and carry them on ur belt... that's why sometimes ppl use strings are a references term to coins.........

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

Jieming
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DragonSeedLegacy

Can anyone post some pictures of chinese money when it was still under the Dynasty Govermants and perhaps current money. Is POC ROC differant in terms of money printing?

Basic Ancient Chinese Coin Types
(reference: Education Department of the Shanghai Museum)

Money emerged as a form of currency in exchange for commodities. In ancient China, cowries and livestock were used as a mediem of exchangei n the late Neolithic period (21st century BC). This was gradually replaced by unwrought weight metals and cast coins in the Shang and Zhou Dynasties (16th century - 770 BC). After the Qin unification of China in 221 BC, the round-with-a-central-square-hole coin superseded all previous types of cast coins and became the de-facto standard right up till the Ming and Qing Dynasties.

Cowry -
An early medium of exchange used in the late Xia Dynasty (21st century BC). The cowry of the later Shang Dynasty (16th - 11th century BC) usually featured teeth at one side and a hole for stringing together. As natural cowries were limited in quantity, copies made of stone, seashell, bone and bronze were also used in circulation. Bronze cowries were therefore the first Chinese cast coins.

Weight metals -
Smelted metal pieces without denomination were used as money in commodity exchanges. They were valued by weight and material quality. Gold plates for instance, were used in the state of Chu during the Warring States period (475 - 221 BC).

Cast coin -
Cast into preset shapes, sizes and weights, these coins were denominated and issued legally for circulation.

Spade-shaped coin -
A type of cast coin in the shape of a farming implement, the spade. The early ones were cast with hollow handles but later coins during the Warring States period (475 - 221 BC), they were cast with solid handles.

Sword-shaped coin -
Coins were also cast in the shape of a sword with a ring at the end of the handle.

Round coins -
Two types of cast round coins could be found in ancient China; coins with a round hole in the center like a ring and coins with a square hole in the center. The square holed coins became the predominant form after the standardization implemented by the first Emperor of the Qin (221 BC).

Engraved coins models -
Original coin models were engraved from pieces of copper or tin. The first coins cast from moulds of the original engraved models were called "model coins". These were not used for circulation. Coins for circulation were cast after the "model coins". Since "model coins" were original proof copies of the coins used in circulation, they were of very high quality and the few quantities of these coins make them rare and extremely valuable today.

Iron coins -
Cast coins came in two varieties, in bronze or in iron.

Minted coin -
During the Guangxu period (1875 - 1908) of the Qing Dynasty, Western minting technology was introduced into China. Zhang Zhidong, governor-general of Guangdong and Guangxi regions set up a mint in Guangzhou with machines brought from Britain and made the first Chinese minted-coins, silver and copper dollars in the 15th year of Guangxu reign (1889).

Liang Jieming
groups.yahoo.com/group/DragonSeedLegacy

Other currencies used in ancient China include Silver (Ying) and Gold in the form of Yuanbao (元宝). I wonder if those are also casted.

What is a string of cash? I've often heard of this in Outlaws of the Marsh, but never knew how much it was. My parents didn't know either.

Well its a bronze, silver, gold coin. But it has a hole in the middle and often a string was put threw the middle and attatched to a belt or something like that. This is why it was refeered to as a "string of cash".

anyone have pictures?

I think string was like... 'pocket full of change' or 'bag of money'
it's a general idea, not a specified amount.

Ya the holes in old chinese coins made them very easy to tie together with string or with a handkerchief through the middle. They were tied together and used in specific amounts like $10 is made out of 10 $1 notes tied together kinda thingy.

If you read the over classical novels like Water Margin etc, they always talk about giving blah blah many strings of cash for payment etc.

I have a picture of this somewhere on my computer. I'll search and see.

Jieming

Pictures of New Taiwan Dollar coins and notes, from oldest to the newest currently in use. NT coins

NT Dollar notes

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.com/group/DragonSeedLegacy

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

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.

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.ucsb.edu/faculty/robert...anufacture.html

Jieming

Great site!

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!

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.

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.

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?

here's a link that may help:
http://www.travelchinaguide.com/intro/focus/currency.htm

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

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?

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

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.

Zunjing de China History Forum members,

Prior to Qin Dynasty, there was no standard currency for China ; it was Qin Shi Huang who not only unified the country politically, but also in form of currency. By the Qing Dynasty, golden coins were made with the current Emperor’s face on the back or the front. Therefore, the ascension of a new Emperor would always give birth to new faced coins. However, I really have no idea when the current Emperor’s face began to appear on coins! Will someone please enlighten me on when this practice started? Did it start with Qin Shi Huang, who instigated the uniformity of currency? I knew for sure that coins during Qing Dynasty had faces of each Qing Emperor at some point or another, but who proposed this idea?

Xie Xie,

This is the first time I hear such thing about emperor's face on coins.
Faces on coins was a Roman tradition and did not exist in ancient China. So I guess it would be some foreginers ideas (or someone who has foreigners ideas to put emperor's faces on coins duing the late Qing.

Sorry, not that i mistrust you, but where did you get the info from? It sounds logical..Can you show me the link first.

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

Okay, although people would not use ignots when they are out, but they would use sui yin/ silver "stones" right?

Sorry I don't have a source that is specialized in this issue. It is a composite of various sources I have seen throughout years. There is a good book about on ancient Chinese financial economy by an ancient Chinese called "The Theroy of Salt and Metal" that might help.

sui yin is broken silver, that's still how Chinese call their coins and changes. Actually the governments of ancient China would have their own mints. So the floating currency would be the coins form those mints. You can probably used gold and silver "yuan bao" if you had to, and people would definitely accpet them (who doesn't love gold and silver) but don't expect you can get the changes back after that. Small silver stone would be better but you will have to go through a whole discussion with the merchant about how much weight of the silver is equal to how many coins, so it is not a god practice for everybody.

I think Le Khac Minh Giao meant the "faces of emperors" the names of the emperor. So for example the coins during emperor KangXi's reign would have the words Kang Xi 康熙 on it.

I'm not sure if I understood it correctly...

Oh that is true for sure, but it wasn't the emperors' real names though it was the reign years.

oh sorry, my mistake. lol

Want to add that during 5 dynasties, a state used lead as currency, which was worthless.

However, since trade was still going on, merchants needed to buy the valueless currecny with that state in order to buy and sell, and when they were getting out of that state, they needed to get rid of the currency asap because it had not use once outside of that state, so they got rip off the exchange rate. That state got rich by this close-to-robbing method.

So anyone else in this forum (guests weclome to share too) got any other links and information that can share with me? I am really interested to know.

How did the merchants buy the valueless currency from the state? With the produce/goods the merchants were carrying or were ignots(be it gold or/and silver) or with the silver stone chips?

Like how you use US dollar to buy some wortheless currency. Another way is that when a merchatn sold his items in that state, he would be getting the lead currency. When he was leaving that state, since that currency was useless, he would use it to buy the products of that state and sell them somewhere else.

So you are saying that the merchants would use ingots to buy the currency from the state before entering the particluar state for trading? Alternatively, the merchants would have to sell some of its goods first just to get some of the state's currency on the day he enter that state?

Yes but everything was done within that state, as other states had no use of the currency.

Zunjing de Ashura,

Hmm, I had no idea that putting faces of the leaders on coins was initially a Roman tradition. Did this practive never exist in ancient China?

Zunjing de Orchid_dreams,

No, I actually meant faces of the Emperors. The coins would have faces of each Emperor, their era names, and the years from which they have reigned. However, I have only seen 12 of these coins, all from the 12 Qing Emperors. Honestly, I don’t really know how accurate this would be since it seems to have only existed with Qing Emperors.

Can someone please elaborate on this?

Xie Xie,

Wow! Really! I thought they looked like this:

Then if the merchant had to buy the currency from that particular state, how would he know that he was making a profit when trading goods, since there were no exchange rates(E.G -- han:1tael to wei:1.5tael)?

However, I am wondering whether in these kind of cases, merchants would use gold and silver ingots to calculate the total value of all their goods. After that in their own state, they would caluclate how many string of coins/taels/pennies (currency) is equal to each gold/silver ingot. Then they would also caluclate how much cash/taels/pennies (currency) from the other state is to one gold/silver ingots. Then they would use gold/silver ignots to buy the string of cash/taels/pennies (currency) from the other state. This way, it forms the exchange rate of each different state. Thus gold/silver ingots becomes the common currency of each state. Thus merchants would know whether they are making a profit or not in their trading of goods.

Anyway, how did ancient china produce/make gold and silver ingots at that time, using moulds?

May not initially a Roman tradition, ut the Roman were famous for doing that. Can you show us the faces of emperors on a coin or paper? I thought they looked like what orchid_dreams has shown.


Trade is basically an exchange of goods. So if you orignially had 5 kegs of beer when you enter state A and get out with 15 swords, when are equal to 7 kegs of beer in your original state, you are making a profit.

To your 2nd question, composition of currency, ie the mixture of metal within a coin, various through out ages, and there is not absolute garantee. So in times of chaos, gold and silver are valuable, they still are today, but by no mean they are the standard because of inflation. Answer your question?

I don't know how they make ingots. They would have to melt them first.

But you do agree that the gold/silver ingots are actually a common currency for traders from different states just like our modern day exhcange rate traders right? Just the earlier post which I made yesterday.
Refer below.

merchants would use gold and silver ingots to calculate the total value of all their goods. After that in their own state, they would caluclate how many string of coins/taels/pennies (currency) is equal to each gold/silver ingot. Then they would also caluclate how much cash/taels/pennies (currency) from the other state is to one gold/silver ingots. Then they would use gold/silver ignots to buy the string of cash/taels/pennies (currency) from the other state. This way, it forms the exchange rate of each different state. Thus gold/silver ingots becomes the common currency of each state. Thus merchants would know whether they are making a profit or not in their trading of goods.

No they are hard currency but not floating curency. Many people never saw gold or silver in their entire lives in the old days. The common/floating currencies were most likely made by bronze and with mixture of other metals. The word "gold" during Qin meant bronze actually. Gold and silver were acceptable, because the floating curencies were based on that. However during times of chaos the most reliable currency would be food.

Can you explain abit further? I am still abit blur about your explanation