CERTAIN OLD CHINESE NOTES. 



By Andrew McFarland Davis. 

 Presented, February 10, 1915. Received, February 19, 1915. 



Chinese Paper Money. 



The use in China, as a medium of trade, of a representative paper 

 currency, based upon government credit dates back with reasonable 

 certainty to the beginning of the ninth century of the Christian Era. 

 The notes than in circulation are referred to by Chinese historians in 

 such a way as to leave no doubt in the minds of investigators compe- 

 tent to analyze the literature of that country, as to the authenticity 

 of the statement that at that date a government paper money was in 

 circulation. There are fabulous assertions by Chinese writers, as to 

 the use of paper money many centuries before the birth of Christ. 

 And there are specific assertions of the value assigned to white deer 

 skins, for purposes of transfer under certain circumstances, by one 

 of the emperors about a century and a half before Christ, which have 

 led translators to speak of them as "Deer Skin Money." I take 

 no consideration of this so-called money, for it was neither paper 

 money, nor would the accounts that we have of it permit it to be 

 defined as money at all. But the beginning of the ninth century of 

 the Christian Era has been generally accepted by students of the 

 subject as the period when it can be satisfactorily demonstrated that 

 government notes were actually circulated in lieu of metallic money. 

 There is indeed a Chinese numismatical work 1 which furnishes pictorial 

 representations of notes emitted as early as the middle of the seventh 

 century. The compiler of that work must have had some authority 

 for the designs of these earlier notes which he published. If we hesi- 

 tate to accept this date, without further knowledge as to the authori- 

 ties upon which are based the details given about these notes, it must 

 nevertheless be recognized as possible that the date of 650 A.D. may 

 ultimately be accepted as that of the earliest emission of notes by the 

 Chinese government of which we have at present any trace. The 

 fact remains however that there is corroborative evidence from numer- 



i Ch'ien Pu Tung Chih, or by others Chuan Pu Tung Chih. 



