A Study On Copper Coin In Late Qing Dynasty

Copper coin,one of important type of Chinese traditional coin,is the first step of Chinese coinage into modern time.Therefore,the study of it is also crucial to currency history and cultural exchange between China and the West.It takes copper coin from late Qing as the object of study.After checking out and looking through many materials,documentsand chorography of Qing dynasty from the First Historical Archives,the author had a deep study of the backgroundof the copper coin's appearance,and its development from raise to fall.Basing on this,it also analyses the alloy composition,foundry technology and copper sources through experiments and materials and documents study.According to the study,in 1900 Guangdong Province successfully minted copper coins first to solve the problems of lacking copper cash,then many other provinces followed it.In the following 10 years,29 mints in 19 provinces were set up,and 20 billions copper coins were made.Those mints earned 25.59 millions taels silver profit.However,the copper coin was similar to traditional copper coin,and the Qing government pursuit excessively to the profit,so it is inevitable to have the copper coin's devaluation and decline.According to the detection results,copper coinwas mainly composed of copper,zinc,tin,and a small amount of impurity lead.Coins from different provinces or different mints composed different components.Generally,most of the coins were in good quality,and as time went by,the coins were getting better and better,which presented that the Qing government's policy worked well.Most of the equipment was imported from UK,USA and Germany.Those advanced equipment promoted the prosperity of the copper coin.The techniques of foundry from the West including the processes of melting,pressing,shaping,polishing,washing and stamping,improved the quality of coins and efficiency of production.It led the foundry industry into modern time.The copper raw materials,imported from Japan,Australia and USA,were more than 90 thousand ton,93%percent of total copper raw materials,which was an important factor for coin foundry.Those raw materials were rich for coin production.Overall,copper coin showed a merging of Chinese traditional coin technology and the western ones and the achievement of cultural exchanges on coinage between China and the West.