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Posted 02/07/2011 11:55 pm
Quote:
One is a supposedly a $10 coin celebrating the 3rd anniversary of Taiwan being independent of China and the other is something from the Hong Kong national bank. Says something about 10oz.
One is a supposedly a $10 coin celebrating the 3rd anniversary of Taiwan being independent of China and the other is something from the Hong Kong national bank. Says something about 10oz.
I'm afraid that whoever gave you this information knows little about Chinese coins, or the current Chinese political situation.
The top coin does indeed claim to be a "10 dollar coin" from the third year of the Republic of China, which is now based on Taiwan. It resembles the one dollar coin of that date. But the ROC was founded when the Empire fell in 1911; year 3 of the Republic was 1914. Taiwan has never "been independent of China". The two factions in the Chinese civil war disagree about most things, but both agree that Taiwan is merely a province of China and not a separate country. Taiwan issuing a coin announcing independence would be tantamount to a declaration of war, as far as the mainland government is concerned.
The bottom coin has nothing to do with Hong Kong. It claims to be a "10 tael coin" of the Chinese Empire and the design has been copied from a scarce pattern 1 tael coin, from the early 1900s. Genuine 1 taels are scarce, though copies of them are often found amongst the fake coins that are pouring out of China right now. The "treasury tael" is a unit of weight (equal to 37.3 grams or 1.2 troy ounces), not of money; Imperial China briefly considered issuing a tael-based coinage to replace their dollars but ultimately rejected the concept.
Don't say "infinitely" when you mean "very"; otherwise, you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite. - C. S. Lewis
