User:Donald Trung/Strings on Bamboo tallies

This page serves as "the editing history" of the English Wikipedia article "String of cash coins (currency unit)" and is preserved for attribution.
 * https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:MobileDiff/921527331
 * ✅. --Donald Trung (talk) 07:41, 16 October 2019 (UTC).

Bamboo tallies
Some Chinese bamboo tallies, which circulated in the provinces of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Shandong from the 1870s until the 1940s, used "strings of cash coins" as a currency unit, but also contained additional inscriptions stating that they would not be paid out in "regular" cash coins. For example a bamboo tally with the text "串錢壹仟文" (Chuàn qián yīqiān wén, "a string of 1000 cash coins") could contain the additional information that it if were to be redeemed that it would be paid out in Daqian (大錢) of "10 cash" coins. This bamboo tally would then be paid out in a string of 100 Daqian of 10 wén.

Below their denominations many bamboo tallies had the Chinese characters xin hao (信號, "warranty mark") to indicate that the bamboo tally is trustworthy to be worth its stated (nominal) value.

Another way to indicate what type of cash coins would be paid out is if the bamboo tally did or didn't contain the inscription 10 wén (十文) below its top hole. It could then contain an inscription like "串錢貳百文" (Chuàn qián èrbǎi wén, "a string of 200 cash coins") that would only have to be paid out in a string of 20 cash coins of 10 wén rather than 200 cash coins of 1 wén. The reason why the issuing authorities would do this has to do with the concept of "token" money that the Chinese employed at the time. As the Qing dynasty's government starting manufacturing Daqian since the Xianfeng period that contained high nominal values but had intrinsic values that were only slightly more valuable than the low denomination coinages, the issuer of the Bamboo tally would be able to make a profit off of this situation, this was because the bamboo tally in question would be valued more than the promised redeemed value.

In general, bamboo tallies in the region were not always "redeemed" and would continue to circulate in their local areas as a type of alternative currency as long as the local populace would maintain their "trust" that the bamboo token had "value" or "worth". This situation translated into the profits of issuing the tally was kept by the issuing authority. And if the bamboo tally were to be redeemed the redeemer would receive a weight of bronze or brass much lower than the bamboo tally's nominal value.

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Bamboo specific references

 * ✅. --Donald Trung (talk) 07:39, 16 October 2019 (UTC).
 * ✅. --Donald Trung (talk) 07:39, 16 October 2019 (UTC).
 * ✅. --Donald Trung (talk) 07:39, 16 October 2019 (UTC).