Mint Coin

Interesting Facts about Ancient Chinese Coins

Ancient Chinese coins date back to 2000 BC during the Xia dynasty. There are still coins used today, but then they varied in size and shape and were used for many different things.

During the Shang and Western Zhou eras there were numerous types of coins that came into use. The very first of these coins were cowry money. These were originally made of shells, but substitutes became used later that were made from carved bone. The cowry was outlawed in 221 BC.

Other types of coins were used during the Spring-Autumn and Warring States. One of these was the hollow-shaft spade. Some other types of coins resembled knives. They were large and had a hole at the top so they could be stringed up. These types of coins were called “The Ming” after the city not the dynasty. Another type of coin was the “Bu” spade coin. This era also produced some of the first round coins.

Between 221 BC and 207 BC was the Qin dynasty. This was the first time they used precious metals such as bronze and gold to make coins. These were not the first metal coins by any means, however. Metal coins existed between 600 BC and 300 BC during the Pre-Chou and Chou dynasties.

“Pan Liang” style coins were in service for an extremely long period of time. It is very possible that they were in use up to 2000 years. In some areas they were in use all the way until 1911 AD. The coins were made in the later years of the BC era, somewhere between 140 and 118 BC. These round coins have a square hole in the middle.

During the Han dynasty, which was between 206BC to 220AD, minting coins was made into a state monopoly. In the first century, 220,000 strings of 1000 coins each were made. Coins of the western Han used a casting mould of bronze to make the coins easy to standardize. They used artists to incise the mold since it only had to be done once.

A coin much like the Pan Liang was introduced under Emperor Yuan-shou. This was called the Wu-Ch’u. The only difference between the two coins was really that the Wu-Ch’u had a rim to protect it from wear. For hundreds of years this coin was duplicated.

One coin used during the Mongol period between 1280-1368 was a round coin with a square in the middle. It had many intricate designs. This coin was stopped from use very quickly due to people hoarding them. They were given a time period to return them or be punished.

Ancient Chinese coins have a very long history dating back thousands of years. The coins have been very diverse. They have been made from many different types of things. Most eventually turned to a form of metal. Each coin type was intricately made to whatever the ruler at the time liked.

RMR: Royal Canadian Mint Commemerative Coin