China numismatics in the 1910s - 1930s are very complicated due to various historical events. In this case, I will only focus in one area.
Szechuan might be known for Macdonalds Szechan inspired hot and spicy sauce released back in the late 80s. It is indeed known for it's numbing hot spicy dishes. Located in south west part of China, Szechuan or Sichuan (in pinyin) stands for "4 rivers".
Szechuan in the early 1900s was striking various silver, copper coins however they were known to be striking a lot of bronze coins. This was due to when Szechuan was ruled by warlords and in order to generate revenue quickly, good quality copper coins were melted down and were CAST in bronze. Official mints were also guilty of this as official coins were struck in bronze too.
Fast forward in 1925, a man made disaster struck - a famine. Numbers range but it would been half a million deaths
https://disasterhistory.org/sichuan-famine-1925Now this is a mere speculation but I suspect that these were struck as another mean of revenue raising against the famine.
It's one of those it looks so easy to fill until you look at the closer details.
50 cash: 90,000 (!)
100 cash: 7,055,000
200 cash: 404,644,000
The early coins were struck in good quality copper coins however bronze coins were also struck as well as contemporary counterfeits appeared later.
50 cash mintage is unusually low - I would suspect that making such low denomination coin was not profitable. Coin weights are all over the place too!
50 cash: 5.12g
100 cash (copper overstrike): 9.94g - 10.31g
100 cash (brass): 9.19g - 11.40g
200 cash (copper): 12.69g
200 cash (brass): 12.88g - 13.56g
Some of the copper 100 cash coins are overstruck over earlier 20 cash coins that circulated. This would have meant an inflation of 5 times!
And here are some pictures:
50 cash
100 cash (overstruck over Hunan 20 cash)
100 cash (brass)
200 cash (copper)
200 cash (brass)
200 cash (contemporary counterfeit) - crooks must have felt this is very profitable
As you can see, quality control is very poor with lots of die cracks evident. Note that when small change was required, sometimes you may find 200 cash coins cut up as half or quarter!
The 50 cash coin is an underrated coin which I have been hunting for the last decade (!). A recent auction had two for offer - AU53 went for 500 and MS63 at 5,500 USD! Thankfully I have managed to close another hole in my collection.
Feel free to post your Sichuan coins from this era!
Posted 11/18/2020 1:36 pm
