As he spoke, he took out a few coins from his arms.
Li Guangyuan took one, but found that the money was smaller than Yongle Tongbao and the weight was lighter. Although the silver was shiny and heavy, it was not silver coins - he had carefully played with the one-dollar, half-round and twenty-cent silver coins issued by the Australians. The size, texture and portion size are completely different.
He twisted the coin and looked at it carefully. On one side of the coin, "一文" was embossed in Song font, surrounded by wheat ears, Dashi numbers and some Western characters on the bottom. On the other side, "一文" was engraved in large Dashi numbers. 1", the background is a large ship with a pointed nose. It is obvious that this is the big iron ship of the Kun thief.
The Senate earlier issued yuan and cents, one dollar for one hundred cents. However, in actual use, the face value of the cents was still too large, so small transactions were still used in the market using various copper coins retained in the society, or even rounded up. Buy and sell goods. There are many types of copper coins popular in the market, with different weights and qualities, so the exchange rate between copper coins and cents is not fixed. In some places, one cent is five cents, in some places ten cents, and in some places sixteen cents. These are all It brought inconvenience to the economic activities and commodity circulation within the Senate, and also affected the copper resources in the Senate's recycling of copper coins. Therefore, the continued issuance of smaller denominations of auxiliary coins below the cent currency soon became the top priority for currency issuance. Bit.
The unit of the auxiliary currency is positioned as "wen" to cater to the usage habits and verbal addresses of the common people. However, everyone has encountered difficulties as to what to use as cultural currency. Ordinary copper coins are absolutely unacceptable. The Senate has been short of copper since its landing. This has been alleviated to some extent through trade with Japan and mining. However, the price of copper is still high. Copper coins issued will basically not receive seigniorage, and may even be stolen by others. Melted the wool of the Senate.
Issuing steel coins is naturally the best solution, but the Senate does not have the ability to produce stainless steel. If it is made of carbon steel, it will soon be corroded in circulation, seriously jeopardizing the seriousness of legal tender.
As for using nickel coins - this is also the most common metal material for small-value auxiliary coins in the old time and space. However, this kind of cheap non-ferrous metal is a scarce material for the Senate. The corresponding ones are aluminum coins.
The ultimate compromise was to issue paper money. Anyway, now both yuan and cents have issued banknotes, which are acceptable in terms of acceptance and circulation. Therefore, the currency was all banknotes from the beginning, and the exchange rate was one cent for ten coins.
Li and Luo were already accustomed to Kun and Wen's banknotes, so they were naturally a little surprised when coins suddenly came out.
This needs to be looked at carefully. Li Guangyuan thought to himself.
Judging from the texture, this new "wen" inherits the characteristics of the Australian silver dollar. The material is smooth and clean, the pattern is delicate, and the outer edge has convex rings like the coin. It is very delicate, but it does not have the same fine engraving as the silver dollar. But if you look closely at the light, you can see that there are inscriptions as thin as gnats on the raised circle. I really don’t know how it was engraved.
"Is this a penny?!" Luo Heying was a little unbelievable. Although it is certain that the material of this coin is neither silver nor copper, such exquisite casting is already worth a lot of money. It’s just the tiniest penny? !
Li Guangyuan said: "Have you seen the color after cutting it?"
"It's indeed a penny." The clerk said, "The shopkeeper cut the clip, but it couldn't be cut. He filed it again and found that the shiny silver layer on the outside was wrapped - I don't know what method was used, but there was an iron core on the inside. ”….
"Iron money!" Luo Heying sneered, "Since ancient times, no court has ever issued iron money!"
This is true. Since Qin Shihuang minted half a tael, China's minted currency has always been copper coins. It's just that with the rise and fall of dynasties, the composition of copper changed, and the size and weight changed. Except for the vassal towns and some local governments in the Tang Dynasty, iron coins had never been formally minted.
Luo Heying was a little excited to see the thief Kun starting to mint iron coins. In his opinion, this was a sign that the thief Kun was "short of money" and was beginning to reach the end of his rope.
But Li Guangyuan knew that this was meaningless, because Australians now have banknotes in all denominations, and they can travel freely in Guangdong and Guangxi, and are recognized by business travelers. It doesn’t really matter what material the coins are made of.
Li Guangyuan and Luo Heying did not know that the "Yiwen" they held in their hands was the first batch of small-denomination coins produced by the Hong Kong Mint. It has just been sent to Dongguan from China Reserve Bank in Guangzhou and started to circulate. This coin is still brand new.
Making auxiliary coins is not just a whim.
, but had to make improvements to improve currency circulation.
Although paper money is very convenient to print, use, transport and store, the results of its actual use are quite annoying to the senior officials of the finance and financial institutions. It is true that basically all levels of currency have issued corresponding banknotes, and the circulation is still normal. However, the shortcomings exposed are increasing day by day.
Yuan coins and half yuan are the least problematic, because these banknotes are basically only accepted in Guangzhou and Hainan. People from other places rarely use such large denominations of money, and they don't have the confidence to use it to hoard savings, so they put their wealth and life on a piece of paper.
In Guangzhou and Hainan, the Senate has implemented the policy most deeply. Everyone from the octogenarians to the young children have heard the propaganda on anti-counterfeiting currency and seen the posters on currency anti-counterfeiting. I have seen real banknotes more than once. Even if the counterfeiter has great ability, he cannot make it exactly the same as the real banknote.
Therefore, even if there have been several counterfeit coins, they have not been circulated on a large scale in Guangzhou and Hainan.
At the same time, people who use large amounts of money also cherish it. They put the money in a special wallet and handle it with care. It has been circulated for many rounds and is like new.
But small currencies are a big problem. Especially cents and coins. On the one hand, due to cost, the Senate did not implement sophisticated anti-counterfeiting measures on small-denomination currencies. It has always used special paper and steel plate printing for anti-counterfeiting. The consequence of this is that there have been many attempts to counterfeit currency in the areas around Guangzhou: the technology of stencil printing is not difficult to master. Counterfeit money dealers can engrave tin plates, and will also find ways to wash out the denominations printed on small-denomination banknotes, and then use tin plates or copper plates to print new denomination designs. There are also cases where grain circulation coupons that have been withdrawn from circulation are used for counterfeiting. Although it is easy to find out what is wrong with the counterfeit coins produced in this way by comparing them with genuine coins, it is very confusing to people who do not have strong awareness of anti-counterfeiting. This type of counterfeit currency has become mainstream.
Another problem is that small denomination banknotes are too damaged.
At the tax bureau and at the grassroots level of Delong Bank, there have been situations where window staff could not bear it anymore, took out a stack of tattered papers, and complained to their superiors. Thousands of one-cent notes, as crumpled as toilet paper, each one needs to be carefully flattened, authenticated and counted, which is a great torture for the people at the window. ….
And these departments often need to be re-inventoryed after closing.
Grassroots banks, where small-denomination banknotes are popular, often have long queues for exchanges when business volume is high, and counting work has to work overtime until late at night.
Later, after calculation, one-pen banknotes need to be recycled after circulation no more than 30 times, but the circulation cost is much higher than copper-silver alloy ten-cent coins.
Therefore, the Wudaokou elders, who originally expected paper money to collect seigniorage, have always wanted to promote the coinization of small-amount currencies.
After a simple sorting out and discussions with the industrial port, the final plan was to issue four types of silver coins, namely one yuan, half circle, two ten cents and ten cents. The latter two are made of silver-copper alloy. Silver coin exchange coupons of four denominations will be issued at the same time.
Two other coins, five cents and one cent, were issued. Coins and banknotes are also circulated in equal amounts, with coins being the main currency. The one-cent coin is made of zinc alloy and copper-plated coins. This scheme was widely used in the olden days for small-denomination coins, such as the famous Lincoln-head penny.
The smelting history of elemental zinc is not long. Elemental zinc was successfully refined only in the late Ming Dynasty. The previous zinc was brass smelted together with copper ore. Therefore, zinc was still a high-priced metal like tin in the Ming Dynasty. A denomination that can support its cents.
Zinc was not scarce in the metal inventory of the Senate, and after taking over Guangdong, its sources were greatly expanded. It is roughly enough to make secondary tokens.
But Wufen’s material made it difficult for everyone. One five-pointer is equivalent to five one-pointers. It is not enough to just slightly enlarge the size of the coin or change the pattern. It must be clearly distinguished from the one cent to support its face value and improve its acceptance among the people. At the same time, it is more difficult to counterfeit - these coins also need to be circulated in large quantities to the countryside where there is no awareness of anti-counterfeiting.
The Mint's design was for bimetallic currency. Many governments in ancient times tried to manufacture this kind of bimetallic currency. However, the manufacturing process was too difficult and it was not successfully used in currency circulation until the 20th century. Therefore, the elders had full confidence in its anti-counterfeiting performance.
The initial plan was to have a copper core and a brass ring.
Coin, but the result is that the inner core is too soft, and it is easy to fall off if it is not tightly combined with the outer ring. Moreover, the color difference between copper and brass before rusting is too small, which is not conducive to distinguishing them from counterfeit coins.
Later, the improved plan was to use brass coated with white copper or silver copper as the inner ring and brass as the outer ring. This solution combines the inner and outer rings well, and the inner core has a beautiful silver luster.
The biggest drawback of this plan is that it requires nickel, and the Senate currently only controls a few small nickel mines in Guangxi, which means it cannot be mined on a large scale. The industrial demand for nickel is still huge. As a result, the price of nickel was higher than the price of silver under the Senate, and the price of cupronickel was slightly higher than the S800 silver used in jewelry. However, considering the trouble of changing currencies and the upcoming large-scale nickel mine development, brass was eventually used. White copper clad inner core solution. Since the raw materials are insufficient, only a small amount will be issued for the time being, mainly one-cent coins.
As for the currency, all coins are used, and the original banknotes will be gradually phased out after recycling. It has only one denomination: one currency.
The Senate had some fantastic ideas about the material of this auxiliary coin, including glass coins, ceramic coins, bamboo stick coins, etc., but the final result of the discussion was to issue iron coins. The main material is wrought iron, which is pressed into exquisite coins and then hot-dip galvanized. It not only prevents corrosion, but also gives the currency a shiny silver color. .
braggart
