As he said that, he took out a few coins from his pocket.
Li Guangyuan took one, but found that the coin was smaller than the Yongle Tongbao, and the weight was also lighter. Although the silver was shining and heavy, it was not silver coins - one yuan, half round, and twenty-cent silver coins issued by Australians.
He has played with them carefully. The size, texture and weight 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 in the market still used various copper coins retained in the society, and even rounded them up.
Buy and sell goods. There are many types of copper coins popular in the market, with different weights and qualities. Therefore, the exchange rate between copper coins and cents is not fixed. In some places, it is five cents per cent, in some places ten cents, and in some places sixteen cents.
, these all 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 issuance of smaller denominations of auxiliary coins below the cent currency was soon put on the agenda of currency issuance.
’s highest ranking.
The unit of auxiliary coins is positioned as "wen" to cater to the usage habits and verbal addresses of the common people. However, everyone has a problem with what to use as Wen coins. Ordinary copper coins are absolutely unacceptable. The Senate has been short of copper since its landing.
, there has been some relief through trade with Japan and mining, but the price of copper is still high, and copper coins are basically not collected in seigniorage, and the wool of the Senate may even be smelted privately.
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 cheap non-ferrous metal is a scarce material for the Senate. The corresponding material is aluminum coins.
The final compromise is to issue banknotes. Anyway, both yuan and cents are now issued banknotes, which is 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 the same convex ring as the coin. It is very delicate, but it does not have the same fine engraving as the silver dollar. But facing it
If you look carefully, you can see that there are inscriptions as thin as gnats on the raised circle. I really don’t know how they were engraved on it.
"This is a penny?!" Luo Heying was a little unbelievable. Although he was sure that the material of this coin was neither silver nor copper, such exquisite casting was already worth a lot of money. It was only the smallest 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. Ever 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 has become more or less, and the size and weight have become larger or smaller. Except for the vassal towns in the Tang Dynasty
Except for some local governments, iron money has never been officially 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 are widely used in Guangdong and Guangdong, and are recognized by businessmen and travelers. It doesn't matter what material the coins are made of.
Li Guangyuan and Luo Heying did not know that the "Yiwen" they were holding in their hands was the first batch of small-denomination coins produced by the Hong Kong Mint. They had just been sent to Dongguan from the China Reserve Bank in Guangzhou and began to circulate. This coin was still
Brand new. Brand new.
Making auxiliary coins is not just a whim.
, but had to make improvements in order to improve currency circulation.
Although paper money is very convenient to print, use, transport and store, the results of its actual application are that the veterans of the finance and financial institutions are quite annoyed. Indeed, basically all levels of currency have issued corresponding paper money, and the circulation is still normal.
.However, the ills exposed are increasing day by day.
Yuan coins and half yuan are the least problematic, because these banknotes are basically only circulated 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, putting their wealth and life on a piece of paper.
superior.
In Guangzhou and Hainan, the policy of the Senate has been implemented most deeply. From the octogenarians to the young children, everyone has heard the propaganda on anti-counterfeiting currency and seen the posters on currency anti-counterfeiting. They have also seen real banknotes more than once, even if the counterfeiters have
Even with all your abilities, you can't make it exactly the same as real money.
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 currency also cherish it. They put the money in a special wallet and handle it with care. It has been circulated for many rounds and it is as good as new.
But small-denomination currencies are a big problem, especially cents and currency. On the one hand, due to cost, the Senate has not implemented 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 cases of currency counterfeiting in the areas around Guangzhou: the technology of steel plate printing is not difficult to master. Counterfeit money dealers can engrave tin plates, and will also find ways to wash off the denominations printed on small-denomination banknotes, and then
Use tin plates or copper plates to print new denomination patterns. Food circulation coupons that have been withdrawn from circulation are also used for forgery. Although it is easy to find out the errors in the forged coins by comparing them with the real coins, there are many groups who do not have strong awareness of anti-counterfeiting.
Great deception. 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 couldn't bear it anymore, took out a pile of tattered paper, and complained to their superiors. Thousands of one-cent notes as crumpled as toilet paper, need
Carefully spread out each piece, identify the authenticity, and count the quantity, which is a great torture for the person 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 their business volume is large, and counting work has to work overtime until late at night.
Later, after calculation, one-cent 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 counted on 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 industry, 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 and copper alloy. Four denominations of silver coins are issued at the same time.
Silver coin exchange coupons.
Two types of coins, five cents and one cent, are issued. Coins and banknotes are also circulated in equal amounts, with coins being the main currency. One cent coins are made of zinc alloy copper-plated coins. This solution was widely used for small amounts in the old time.
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, in the Ming Dynasty, zinc was still a high-priced metal like tin.
A denomination that can support its cents.
Zinc is not scarce in the metal inventory of the Senate, and after taking over Guangdong, its sources have been greatly expanded. It is generally enough to make secondary coins.
But the material of the five cents made it difficult for everyone. One five cents should be equivalent to five one cents. Just slightly enlarging the size of the coin or changing the pattern will not work. It must be clearly distinguished from the one cent to support its denomination.
, improve civilian acceptance. At the same time, it will increase the difficulty of counterfeiting - these coins will also be circulated in large quantities to the countryside where there is no awareness of anti-counterfeiting.
The mint was designed to use bimetallic currency. Many governments in ancient times tried to manufacture this kind of bimetallic currency. As a result, the manufacturing process was too difficult, and it was not successfully used in currency circulation until the 20th century. Therefore, the senators used it to prevent counterfeiting.
Have full confidence in performance.
The initial plan was to have a copper core and a brass ring.
coins, 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 from counterfeit coins.
Later, the improved solution was to use brass coated with white copper or silver copper as the inner ring, and brass as the outer ring. This solution combined the inner and outer rings well, and the inner core has a beautiful silver luster.
The biggest shortcoming 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 is higher than the price of silver under the Senate.
The price of cupronickel is also slightly higher than that of S800 silver for jewelry. However, considering the trouble of changing currency and the upcoming large-scale nickel mine development, the brass-clad cupronickel inner core solution was finally adopted. Since the raw materials are insufficient, we will only do it for the time being.
Issued in small quantities, mainly one cent coins.
As for currency, all coins are used, and the original paper currency 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 kind of auxiliary coins, 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 heated.
Dip galvanizing not only prevents corrosion, but also gives the currency a shiny silver color.