Currency Exhibit at the Shanghai Museum 上海博物馆

A Template for Printing Money, This is for One Hundred Wen

A Template for Printing Money, This is for One Hundred Wen

One of the more significant inventions which came out of China continues to influence our way of life. In fact, you can say that without it, life will certainly be very different. I am talking about paper money. It used to be that coins were minted from precious metals and imprinted with particular designs so that they will become official to ward off forgeries. However, there was a significant drawback to these financial instruments – they can be heavy.

Not-so-round Coins From the Zhou Dynasty 周朝

Not-so-round Coins From the Zhou Dynasty 周朝

As anyone would know, walking with a pocket full of coins isn’t exactly very comfortable. The ancient Chinese figured out a solution to intead use paper instead of coins. This was a brilliant solution, however the would always be the danger of forgeries. As a result, elaborate boilerplates were used to print these paper money so that it will be difficult to forge. Initially it was confusing as various kings would produce their own currency. However, as China was unified over the centuries, this was less of a problem. It was fascinating to see how far back the concept of money goes, who knows how life would be now without them.

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