The Historical Currencies of Yunnan
Author: Tang, Guo Yen
Language: Chinese
Page: 336 (Full color)
Publishing Date & Place: 1989.11. Kunmin City, Yunnan, China
Publisher: Yunnan People's (Ren-Min) Publishing Co.
List Price: RMB120
ISBN: 7-222-00504-8/K.93
For centuries, Yunnan had been contributing
the biggest stake of China's annual silver production from the Yuan till the Ching Dynasty, its
distinctive and quality silver ingots were well known to the Chinese people. In the Ming Dynasty, Yunnan's gold and silver sycee both were a kind of
tribute to the emperors. Since the latter part of the Ching Dynasty, Yunnan turned to be a sales and transportation center for native opiums for decades,
vast amount of sycee from other provinces for buying opiums flooded into Yunnan where quickly became an assembly place of all regional
sycee.
This book provides, with most of its capacity, a concise introduction on the fascinating background of Yunnan silver ingots among other currencies,
in associated with pictures of hundreds of sycee specimens in great detail
descending from the axed shaped ingots of the Sung
and Yuan Dynasty, early Boat of the Ming
Dynasty, and various Squares and Saddle sycee from the Ching Dynasty and early
Republican period. The majority of the Sycee specimens illustrated in this book
are of the Ching Dynasty which also are a remarkable section in this book, it
consists of Big Rectangle, Single
Groove, Double Groove, Triple
Groove and the famous Gate-Way sycee (Saddle) and
some others which had been cast and circulated in Yunnan; and also, a great
variety originated from other provinces or neighboring countries but eventually
circulated in its regions.
Most of the illustrated sycee specimens were from the collections of the Yunnan Branch of the People's Bank of China
Out of print.
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