Chinese Cash of the Tang Dynasty

Date: 618 - 841

Materials: Copper alloy

Origin: China

Diameter: 25 mm

Accession No: 1938C413.93

The founder of the Tang dynasty, Emperor Gaozu, introduced this new coin. The characters read kaiyuan tongbao ('new beginning, circulating treasure'). Over the next couple of hundred years enormous quantities of these coins were made by casting them in clay moulds. According to legend, the mark on the reverse was the impression left in a mould by a fingernail of the famous concubine Yang Guifei.
Presented by Hilderic Friend, 1938.