Chinese coins throughout history, were commonly cast bronze “cash”, round coins with four characters around a square hole. At least up to the early 20th century and the 1911 revolution which led to the fall of the Qing dynasty, and the creation of the Republic of China.

The last dynasty was the Qing dynasty, which lasted for nearly 400 years, from 1636. Although it took several decades initially to cement power across the whole of China, and Taiwan. The dynasty also expanded through “Inner Asia” as far as Iran and Kazakhstan

The 1 Cash Qian Long Tong Bao features a similar overall design to many Chinese cash coins: Round with a wide rim, square hole and four characters around the hole. I described the casting process a little in describing the Northern Song 2 Cash. Coin design was even more standardised by the Qing dynasty, with the characters read top, bottom, right, left. The right “Tong” and left “Bao” mean “Circulating currency. There were a number of emperors during the dynasty, so the top and bottom characters changed, in this case Qian Long for Emperor Qianlong. Qianlong was emperor from 1736 – 1795 and coins such as this one were minted across all of that period. The mint is denoted on the reverse of the coin:

Two Manchu words, each read vertically, and together read left then right. In this case, the words are: “ᠪᠣᠣ ᠴᡳᠣᠸᠠᠨ” which translates as Boo-chiowan, the Board of Revenue.

There were many slight variations between coins, here are four:

There are numerous differences between these coins (aside from patina, which will vary depending on the way the coins have been preserved):

• In the right two coins, the right side of the top character looks like the letter “Z”. Note on the left two coins, the same character looks more like a hook (lower) or backwards “3” (top).
• On the right character, note the top looks like a very thin, rectangular, sideways “U” on the top-left and bottom-right coins. It is more like a horizontal line with a triangle underneath on the other two coins (harder to see on the bottom left).
• The bottom character has a left section which looks like a “B” on a tall pole. This “pole” is longer on the right two coins.
• The style of the “feet” on the left character (almost vertical on the lower-left coin, almost flat on the top-left and bottom-right).
• The style of the little vertical line like a hat on the left character.
• The variation in how wavy that line under the right character is and whether it joins the lines above
• How many dots there are to the left of the right character, and whether they touch the center hole.

Sites such as Numista often list the main type, however there are more comprehensive references. One really good one for Chinese coins in general, is David Hartill’s Cast Chinese Coins.

Here is the reverse of the same four coins:

The mint marks can be seen on each, being:

• Boo-Chiowan (top-left and bottom-right)
• Boo-Yuwan (top-right)
• Boo-U (bottom-left)

Again there can be variation in the characters, for instance the top two circles on the “Boo” character have a gap between them on the bottom-left coin. The vertical line on the “Boo” character extends above the top of the circle on the top-left and bottom-right coins and almost on the bottom-left.

Cast Chinese coins are an interesting area of numismatics. It can be rewarding to study these coins and pick out the differences. Many western numismatists have avoided them as they can’t read them, but references such as Hartil simplify the process quite a lot.