What the question is, Is did the
Chinese use
gold coinage? This is different from using it as
money.
Money is use as a store or wealth and exchange. Coins are pieces of metal that have a mark on them that make them official over a given
area for exchange, and they can be used for a store of wealth. It really is hard to define a coin. For example, does a coin need intrinsic value, i.e. made of a certain amount of gold and silver? Some people say yes and others say no. Some people believe that if the coin does not have a value that is separate from the state value on it, the coin is a token (I disagree with this view). The other major question is what constitutes an official mark? Usually it is a mark put on the item that can be recognized by others as belonging to some government or governing body. Finally a coin needs some system of value. In ancient Greek and Roman coinage, this was done by the
weight of the coin and the material it was made of. Later, marks were placed on coins giving their value, especially in the
Byzantine period.
A lot of what you propose for gold, in your message, does meet the definition of
money but not being a coin.
Dear all
Chinese people did use gold on money before1711 BC during shang dynasty.
some example are know (10 where find in same place and an article where write about it in march 2008 by Yang Boda in Arts of Asia magazine)
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many bronze gold plated substitutes cowries are also know.
I have personally in my own collection 3 different silver substitutes cowries but they are very expensive, you can see similar on
here
here
here
These are not coins because they have no official mark them. Also what is there unit of value? We really don't know. Also, couldn't this be considered a form of decoration since we don't know how they were used? They might have been sewn on clothing or worn as
jewelry.
During Zhou dynasty,
During Spring and Automn period (770-475 BC) silver where used to make some hollow head spade, the are extremely rare, I never saw it, I only have writing of a french expert but no pictures...
This could be a form of
money depending on the marks on the hollow
head spades. Of course some people do not consider this coins but rather as proto-coins, or other forms of primitive
money.
During warring states kingdom period (475-221 BC) gold where used by CHU kingdom to make gold block money
These might be considered
gold coins since they do have official marking on them. But do they follow a
standard weight system? If not, they are not coins, but official gold bullion. If they do, I would consider them
gold coins. This is the same problem that occurs with some
Islamic silver "coins", were a
weight standard is not followed. Many experts do not consider this silver "coins" as coins but bullion with a guarantee of finest by the official marks on them.
During Western HAN dynasty (206 BC-7 AD) wher minted some BAN LIANG with gold or gold plated but I don't have any picture
If gold
plated, these are not
gold coins.
During Wang Mang reign (7-23 AD) gold where forbidden in 7 AD and authorized again in 10 AD but after that gold in only used for burial money, palace coin and decoration because most of old chinese dynasty did used a single system: 1 coin is 1 coin, weight and diameter wasn't important.
some writing of QIN dynasty (221-206 BC) explain clearly that.
Didn't some coins have different values? Depending on their size and marks on them? I don't have my references right now, so I can't check on this, but I am certain that there were coins with different values that depended on size and their
inscription.
the only important thing a that time was the writing so we can find
-spade like AnYi Yi Jin (1 jin of AnYi) AnYi Er Jin (2 jin of AnYi) (Zhou dynasty)
-round coin san Zhu (3 Zhu) Si Zhu (4 Zhu) Wu Zhu (5 zhu) (Han Dynasty)
Not sure what you mean by the above. The Zhou dynasty exchange rate does seem to refer to gold, but these could have been bronze coins with that value written on them. With out a description or picture of the item, it really is hard to tell.
some gold coins are for sale on ebay by ONLY LINDA.
I couldn't find any. I will have to contact her and see if she has. I know she is a regular poster on
Zeno and has many unusual items.
Note than during 3 reform of Wang Mang reign, gold where changed as 1 cattie (120grams) = 10.000 Wu Zhu so gold was a real money not a single writing on a knife coin
Of course gold was used as
money by the
Chinese. No one is saying it was not. What we are discussing is "Did the
Chinese make
gold coins?" Which is different from rather gold was used as a unit of exchange. For example, I have some gold that has official marks on it and is in coin shape, but it is not a coin. I would be stupid to exchange a U.S. gold
eagle, with a value mark of $50 on it, for its marked value and not for its value of one ounce of gold. This gold item falls into a gray
area. Is it a coin or is it bullion? Because its value is much less than its ntrinsic value, I would consider it bullion, with a guarantee of content by a government, a certain
weight and finest of gold.