User:Donald Trung/Machine-struck Vietnamese cash coins

This is to test if some proposed changes I wish 🌠 to make will look good. I will keep this around as I might want to experiment more in the future.

Machine-struck Cash coins made by the French government


During the time that Vietnam was under French administration, the French started minting cash coins for circulation first for within the colony of Cochinchina and then for the other regions of Vietnam. These coins were minted in Paris and were all struck as opposed to the contemporary cast coinage that already circulated within Vietnam.

After the French had annexed Cochinchina from the Vietnamese, cash coins would remain to circulate in the region and depending on their weight and metal (as Vietnamese cash coins made from copper, tin, and zinc circulated simultaneously at the time at fluctuating rates) were accepted at 600 to 1000 cash coins for a single Mexican or Spanish 8 real coin or 1 piastre. In 1870 Dietrich Uhlhorn started privately minting machine-struck Tự Đức Thông Bảo (嗣德通寶) coins as the demand for cash coins in French Cochinchina was high. The coin weighed 4 grams which was close to the official weight of 10 phần (3.7783 grams) which was the standard used by the imperial government at the time. Around 1875 the French introduced holed 1 cent coins styled after the Vietnamese cash. In 1879 the French introduced the Cochinchinese Sapèque with a nominal value of 1/500 piastre, but the Vietnamese population at the time still preferred the old Tự Đức Thông Bảo coins despite their lower nominal value. The weight and size of the French Indochinese 1 cent coin was reduced and the coin was holed in 1896 in order to appear more similar to cash coins, this was done to reflect the practice of stringing coins together and be carried on a belt or pole because Oriental garments at the time did not have pockets. The French production of machine-struck cash coins was halted in 1902.

As there were people in Hanoi and Saigon that did not want to give up on the production of machine-struck cash coins, a committee decided to strike zinc Sapèque coins with a nominal value of 1/600 piastre, these coins were produced at the Paris Mint and were dated 1905 despite being put into circulation only in 1906. These coins corroded and broke quite easily which made them unpopular and their production quickly ceased. After Khải Định became Emperor in 1916, Hanoi reduced the funds to cast Vietnamese cash coins which had a dissatisfying effect on the Vietnamese market as the demand for cash coins remained high, so another committee was formed in Hanoi that ordered the creation of machine-struck copper-alloy Khải Định Thông Bảo (啓定通寶) cash coins to be minted in Haiphong, these coins weighed more than the old French Sapèques and were around 2.50 grams and were accepted at 1/500 piastre. There were 27 million Khải Định Thông Bảo of the first variant produced, while the second variant of the machine-struck Khải Định Thông Bảo had a mintage of 200 million, which was likely continued after the ascension of Emperor Bảo Đại in 1926 which was normal as previous Vietnamese emperors also kept producing cash coins with the inscription of their predecessors for a period of time. Emperor Bảo Đại had ordered the creation of cast Bảo Đại Thông Bảo (保大通寶) cash coins again which weighed 3.2 gram in 1933, while the French simultaneously began minting machine-struck coins with the same inscription that weighed 1.36 grams and were probably valued at 1/1000 piastre. There were two variants of this cash coins where one had a large "大" (Đại) while the other had a smaller "大".

Target article

 * Vietnamese cash