10 Cash Da Han coinage

The reverse design depicts "The Flag of Tachi and Eighteen Stars", better known as the "Wuhan Flag", with the eighteen dots representing the eighteen provinces involved in the uprising. This revolution was the one that lead to the overthrow of the Qing dynasty and the founding of the Republic of China.

According to oral history, this was probably a temporary currency used to pay military funds, and its materials and processing methods all came from the Arsenal. Therefore, it can be inferred that there are still certain amounts of Al, Zn and Mn in its copper content, and perhaps P as well. It can also be speculated that the reason for such a small number of existing ones is that most of the tokens used for redemption were recovered, and the time of the Xinhai Revolution was very short. This can also explain why the physical items disclosed so far all have certain circulation traces. Because it is mixed copper, its color is rather dull and not red.

However, there are also other reasons: Qing authorities considered these coins to be an unauthorized illegal issues, and by law, anyone found carrying such pieces were subject to execution, and any examples falling into the Qing authorities' pocessions were to be destroyed. Very few examples are known to have survived, with most references suggesting only five are known (with two being in museums).

However, in reality, due to the ambiguity of the pedigree, there might actually be seven surviving ones. But in any case, no more than ten have been found from the current reports. The list is as follows:

1.Melnikoff-Woodward-Museum in Paris;

2.Hannan-丁张弓良-陈;

3.董弢庵-张叔驯-戴润斋？；

4.王守谦-翁其斧-？；

5.许小鹤-马定祥-李伟先-Museum-黄华枢-？；

Example of this catalog

6.张-？；

7.Shanghai Museum；

8.Japanese Emperor - Japan Mint Museum

9.？-何代水

Due to the impurity of copper, lamination is often seen in current examples. In addition, we observe that there is a weak impact at a fixed position on the front - this is due to the overly high relief design on the back and the insufficient processing of the copper material. This might be the reason why such patterns have been abandoned and replaced by the Iron Blood and Eighteen Stars.

Moreover, the abandonment of the pattern was also related to the chaotic flag design at that time. Later, the Iron Blood and Eighteen Stars and the Blue Sky and White Sun became unified symbols, and thus the Taichi and Eighteen Stars were abandoned. It might also be because the eighteen stars representing the eighteen provinces of the Han region are of different sizes.

The characters on the coin are slender and the brushstrokes are weak, featuring the characteristics of hard-pen calligraphy.