Hobbies And Interests
Composition
When China first began processing silver into coinage, the composition was less important than the weight. The larger and heavier the piece, the more value it had. As the processing became more refined, more value was placed on the purity of silver used. Some later pieces contain up to 99.99 percent pure silver.
Features
Most coins have the usual round shape with images on the obverse (front) side and amounts, year issued and slogans on the reverse (back). The commemorative coins have the person, event or animal being honored on the obverse side. The first of these coins was issued to honor the birth of the Republic of China in 1912. The silver, dollar-size features then president Sun Yat-Sen, while the 20 cent ones had images of the then vice president Li Yuan-Hong.
Some silver Chinese Zodiac coins sport wavy edges and colorful images of one of the 12 animals of the Chinese Zodiac.
The handmade silver sycees, used for larger money transactions from 1884 to 1913, came in drum, shoe, bowl, boat, square, flower and kidney shapes.
Early Monetary Units
The earliest machine-struck silver coins to circulate China were two small silver coins issued by Taiwan during the Ching dynasty between 1890 and 1892, each worth about 10 cents. When Taiwan was ceded to Japan in 1895, they were withdrawn from circulation, and many were melted down or used as earrings or buttons.
Silver dollar pieces were first minted by local governments during the latter part of the Ching dynasty around 1890. Minting them was such a lucrative business that the central government tried to gain exclusive rights by issuing its own silver dollar (known as the Chinese Silver Dragon coin; one of the oldest produced and distributed as a country's official currency) and prohibiting any local minting. However, the local governments ignored the edict and continued minting their own until the Ching dynasty was overthrown in 1911.
Later Monetary Units
In 1914 Chinese silver coins actually termed "Silver Dollars" were circulated by the Nanjing government as replacement coins for army currency after the Xinhai Revolution and remained the official currency until the 1930s.
Patriot Central authority first issued the Chinese Silver Yuan (worth 500 million gold Yuan) in July 1949. Before the civil war, it circulated around the mainland for a few months and remained the Republic of Taiwan's official currency until 2000.
Commemoration
The commemorative silver coins first issued in 1912, reemerged in 1979 in weights ranging from ½ troy oz. to 22 pounds, one example being the coin honoring the Beijing Olympics, which weighs 2.2 lbs. and has a diameter of about 4 inches. The best known Chinese Panda coin (first 10,000 released in 1983) has 1 oz. of pure silver and a diameter a little under 2 inches. On June 30, 2009, it was re-released to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the first release of commemorative coins. As of June 2010, this coin is worth $880.
Although some Chinese Silver Zodiac coins depicting the Chinese 12 animals, 12-year cycle are minted in China, most of these coins are minted in Australia, Somalia and Liberia.