Picking up the milled Vietnam 1 Cash Khải Định Thông Bảo recently, reminded me of my first milled (or machine struck, rather than cast) cash coin. In the early 1900s, around the 1911 Xinhai revolution, China was already looking at more modern minting methods.

From Wikipedia: “From 1889 a machine operated mint in Guangzhou, Guangdong province opened where the majority of the machine-struck cash would be produced. Machine-made cash coins tend to be made from brass rather than from more pure copper as cast coins often were, and later the copper content of the alloy decreased while cheaper metals like lead and tin were used in larger quantities giving the coins a yellowish tint.”

The Guang Xu coin features the same four symbols around a central hole layout that was typical of cast cash coins. It is, however, interesting to note that the hole is round, although there is a square “rim” around the hole.

Like cast coins of the Qing dynasty, these coins also feature the mintmark, read vertically, in Manchu. In this case ᠪᠣᠣ ᡤᡠᠸᠠᠩ, Boo-Guwang, for Guangdong mint.

This particular Guang xu Tong bao coin, is called the “Small type“, as it is much smaller than their cast counterparts. There is a “Large type” which is similar in size to the Milled Vietnam coin. Because the rim and the hole are so much smaller, the characters and fields end up not too different.:

Weight: 1.23 grams
Diameter: 17mm
Thickness: 0.9mm

Compared to the cast Qian Long coin pictured next to it:

Weight: 4.23 grams
Diameter: 24mm
Thickness: 1.5mm

This coin was issued from 1906 – 1908. There were other milled cash coins issued between 1886 – 1910. For me, they are an interesting, transitional, are a of Chinese numismatics. They are also among the last “round with a hole” Chinese Cash Coins made.