Xin dynasty coinage


Xin dynasty coinage was a system of Ancient Chinese coinage that replaced the Wu Zhu cash coins of the Han dynasty and was largely based on the different types of currencies of the Zhou dynasty, including Knife money and Spade money. During his brief reign, Wang Mang introduced a total of four major currency reforms which resulted in 37 different kinds of money consisting of different substances, different patterns, and different denominations.
Eventually Wang Mang was forced to abolish the revived Zhou dynasty coinages in favour of cash coins. But after the fall of the Xin dynasty, the restored Han dynasty reintroduced the Wu Zhu cash coins, but the Huo Quan cash coins introduced during the Xin dynasty would continue to be produced for some time after its fall.

History

First monetary reforms

was a nephew of the Dowager Empress Wang. In AD 9, he usurped the throne, and founded the Xin Dynasty. He introduced a number of currency reforms which met with varying degrees of success.
Many of the newly introduced currencies under Wang Mang had denominations that did not reflect the intrinsic value of the currency. As an example, a monetary piece may have had a nominal value of 1000 Wu Zhu cash coins had only an intrinsic value of three or four Wu Zhu cash coins. In his attempt to restore the ancient institutions of the Zhou dynasty, Wang Mang had issued many different types of money in very many forms.
Because of the unrealistically high nominal value of the money issued under Wang Mang, many Chinese people had turned to casting their own coinages as a response, in order to minimise their losses. As a countermeasure, however, Wang Mang issued edicts that stipulated very strict punishments for those who were caught privately casting coins during his reign.
The first reform, in AD 7, retained the Wu Zhu series of cash coins, but reintroduced two versions of the knife money:
Unlike the Yi Dao Ping Wu Qian knives, the inscription of the Qi Dao Wu Bao knives aren’t inlaid with gold. The nominal value of the Qi Dao Wu Bao knives was 500 Wu Zhu cash coins.

Second monetary reforms

Between AD 9 and 10 he introduced an impossibly complex system involving tortoise shell, cowries, gold, silver, six round copper coins, and a reintroduction of the spade money in ten denominations.
The Six Coins. AD 9–14.
The "Small Coin, Value One" and "Large Coin, Fifty" cash coins are fairly common, but all the other cash coins of the "six coins" are rare today. The Daquan Wushi exists in many sizes and varieties. Some rarer Daquan Wushi have a si chu design, this design has four outward lines extending from the square centre hole towards the outer rim.
The Ten Spades. AD 10–14.
The Chinese seal script characters in the inscriptions of these spades are read in the following order: top right, top left, bottom right, bottom left. This denomination of this spade money was equivalent to their face value in Wu Zhu cash coins.
According to the History of Han:

Third monetary reforms

In AD 14, all these tokens were abolished, and replaced by another type of spade coin and new round coins.
The inscription of the Huo Bu is read from right to left with the seal script on the right is "Huo" which translates as "Money" and the character on the left is "Bu" which translates as "Spade". The Wang Mang era spades have a lot of similarities with the spade money cast during the Warring States period. A major difference between this spade money and the earlier Zhou dynasty version is the addition of the hole at the top of the spade.
These spade coins had the nominal value of 25 cash coins.

Huo Quan cash coins

The most common form of money produced during the Wang Mang era in Chinese history is the Huo Quan series of cash coins which exists in many different varieties, sizes, and weights. The smallest specimens of Huo Quan cash coins can weigh less than 2 grams while the heaviest of this series can weigh between 10-20 grams or more. The very light Huo Quan coins were probably privately cast cash coins, as had happened earlier with the lighter Wu Zhu cash coins during the Han dynasty.
The heavier Huo Quan cash pieces were most likely produced during the final few years of the Wang Mang reign. Most of these heavier Huo Quan cash have been excavated in an area east of Baoji, Shanxi and west of the city of Xi'an, Shanxi. Because these heavier Huo Quan cash coins tend to bulge outward, they are popularly referred to as "cake money" or "biscuit money" in China. The designs of these cash coins are not very uniform and they tend to differ drastically in size, weight, as well as in Chinese calligraphy. These more heavy "cake coins" would probably not have been valued the same on the market as the standard Huo Quan cash coins in contemporary on the market. Their actual value was probably determined according to their weight as opposed to any written denominations.
Specimens of Huo Quan cash coins exist which are made of iron or iron-alloys. Some of these Huo Quan cash coins tend to have no inscription at all. Others Huo Quan cash coins exist as two cash coins that are joined together because during their production process they were never chiselled apart from each other after being removed from the coin mould.
According to Schjöth, Wang Mang wished to displace the Wu Zhu currency of the Western Han, owing, it is said, to his prejudice to the jin radical in the character zhu of this inscription, which was a component part of the character Liu, the family name of the rulers of the House of Han, whose descendant Wang Mang had just dethroned. And so he introduced the Huo Quan currency. One of the reasons, again, that this coin circulated for several years into the succeeding dynasty was, so the chroniclers say, the fact that the character quan in the inscription consisted of the two component parts bai and shui, which happened to be the name of the village, Bai Shui in Henan, in which the Emperor Guang Wu, who founded the Eastern Han, was born. This circumstance lent a charm to this coin and prolonged its time of circulation.

Fourth monetary reforms

The Bu Quan cash coins were known later as the Nan Qian, from the belief that if a woman wore this on her sash, she would give birth to a boy.
The Bu Quan cash coins today are not as rare as the earlier Wang Mang spade coins.

Aftermath

Eventually, Wang Mang's unsuccessful reforms provoked an uprising, and he was killed by rebels in AD 23. The Huo Quan did indeed continue to be minted after the death of Wang Mang – a mould dated AD 40 is known.

List of Xin dynasty cash coins by inscription

List of cash coins issued by the Xin dynasty:

Controversial Wang Mang era coinages

During the Wang Mang era there are two different forms of currency created during this period which had been debated among Chinese coin collectors because of some issues which make them controversial.

Guobao Jinkui Zhiwan

The Guobao Jinkui Zhiwan is an usual piece of coinage attributed to Wang Mang, it's a piece of currency that resembles neither a traditional Chinese cash coin nor any other type of ancient Chinese currency shape such as a spade or knife. The Guobao Jinkui Zhiwan coinage has a round top portion and a square lower portion. The inscription "Guobao Jinkuo" surrounding the square hole located at the top portion is written in a rather unusual order going first top, then left, then right, and then bottom.
There are two Chinese seal script characters located on the lower part of the Guobao Jinkui Zhiwan piece which are read from top to bottom as Zhiwan, which translates into English "value ten thousand". Some Chinese numismatists hypothesise that this piece was not intended to be a form of circlulating money but rather as an emblem symbolising that Emperor Wang Mang was in the possession of several 10,000 jin of gold. Meanwhile other Chinese numismatists hypothesise that the Guobao Jinkui Zhiwan really was intended to be a form of money, but that because its stated face value was so large it never officially circulated in China.
It is not known how many authentic Guobao Jinkui Zhiwan pieces there actually are, as the number of fake pieces seems to be unlimited, some Chinese numismatic reference books mention only a single authentic piece being known to exist, while other Chinese numismatic reference sources state that there exist two known Guobao Jinkui Zhiwan pieces, while other Chinese numismatic sources mention the existence of two whole pieces and a half piece. The "half" piece mentioned by these sources apparently only refers to one specimen for which only the top portion exists, while the "bottom half" is still missing.
One reference book states that one of the specimens was unearthed in the year 1921 in a field somewhere northwest of the city of Xi'an, Shanxi, the former site of central government offices at the end of the Han dynasty.

Xinbu Shiyi Zhu

The second piece of Wang Mang currency that currently remains embroiled in controversy among Chinese numismatists and Chinese coin collectors is a coin that has the inscription Xinbu Shiyi Zhu. Of this coin the only known authentic example of it is located at the National Museum of China in the city of Beijing.
Some Chinese numismatists are suspicious that the Xinbu Shiyi Zhu is in fact fake, they believe this because the Chinese calligraphy is different from any other Wang Mang era coinage and also the coin has four diagonal lines that extend from the four corners of the square centre hole.

Chinese charms based on Xin dynasty coinage

Huo Quan cash coins, like the earlier Ban Liang, San Zhu, and Wu Zhu cash coins reflected the early emergence of Chinese numismatic charms as a number of them contained marks that resemble "stars", "suns", and "moons".
The inscription of Huo Quan cash coins is read from right to left and they were cast beginning in the year 14 AD. Like the later Bingqian, some heave Huo Quan cash coins have four diagonal lines protruding from the corners of the square centre hole of the coin, while uniquely to these cash coins, they can have large blobs situated both above and below the square centre hole. It is suspected that these Wang Mang era Bingqian might be an early form of Chinese numismatic charms, but the exact meaning of these symbols remain to be discovered. Huo Quan Bingqian can have a diameter of 23.3 millimeters and a weight of 7 grams, making them heavier than the standard issue Huo Quan cash coins.
Because of their distinctive shapes and designs the various Xin dynasty coinages served as inspiration for many different types of Chinese numismatic charms for millenia after get fall of the Xin dynasty.

Chinese numismatic charms based on Xin dynasty spade money

One of the more distinctive shapes of Chinese numismatic charms is based on Wang Mang's spade money. These spade charms tend to be very similar to the Wang Mang era spade money, but may contain different inscriptions and designs. On the [obverse and reverse sides of some of these spade charms a major feature is that they have a double line rim on its outer edge and down the centre. The Wang Mang spades upon which these spade charms are based use only a single line for its outer rim and centre inner line.
During the early years of the Republic of China sometime after 1911 a new type of Chinese spade charm was created. It has the same Chinese seal script inscription "Huo Bu" as the original Wang Mang spade coin upon which these numismatic charms based. These spade charms are much, much bigger in size than the original spade money. Just above the Chinese seal script characters is an illustration of the seven star "Big Dipper" constellation. On these charms there is an image of a snake on the lower right foot of the spade as well as a "three-legged toad" located on the left foot.
The reverse side of these charms have the "sun" and "moon" at the upper left area of the spade. At the upper right part of these pieces are three stars that are connected by a line, these three stars refer to the Sanxing. There are also two "Human figures" on these charms that are of unknown origin and its not clear which people they represent. On the right foot of these spade charms there may be a heron.

Hoards of Xin dynasty coins