DAVIS. — CERTAIN OLD CHINESE NOTES. 



269 



"Regarding how these Notes came into my possession, I am sorry to say 

 that it was not in a very romantic manner that they were secured, as they 

 were pin-chased by a dealer in antique coins, etc. in Shanghai from a family 

 at Soo-Chow (a provincial city about 200 miles from Shanghai) who had them 

 in their possession, they say, for two or three generations. This refers to the 

 Tang, Sung, and Liao Notes. The Ming notes, as well as those of the Ching 

 period, were purchased from separate sources, from an old bookseller in Peking. 

 I had these Notes, at the time of the purchase, carefully looked over by most 

 of the old and rare book experts in Shanghai and they were all unanimous that 

 the Notes were absolutely genuine of the periods represented. These men 

 of course, understand the papers that were used in the various periods, the 

 printing, etc. through their intercourse with the early books of China 



I may remark before closing that a Mr. P. Petrucci, an authority in Paris 

 of Chinese Painting, and also a Chinese scholar, who saw these notes, after 

 carefully examining them, expressed them to be in his opinion quite authentic 

 and said he thought the Tang paper was manufactured very probably from 

 bamboo pulp." 



The following is a list of the notes furnished by Mr. Orange : 



Particulars of old Chinese Bank Notes: 



Tang Dynasty 

 West L iao Tartar 



Dynasty 

 Sung Dynasty 

 Ming Dynasty 

 Ming Dynasty 

 Ching Dynasty 



Emperor Hing Chang A.D. 841/6 



Emperor Hsian Ching A.D. 1136/41 



Emperor Chien Tao A.D. 1165/73 



Emperor Hung Wu A.D. 1368/98 



Emperor Hung Tsi A.D. 1425/26 



Emperor Hien Feng A.D. 1851/61 

 During Tae Ping rebellion. 



2 notes 



1 note 



2 notes 



3 notes 

 6 notes 



4 notes 



About the Notes Themselves. 



The two Tang notes are both of them yellow in color. The paper 

 is light and flexible, having little or no sizing. The denominations 

 are expressed pictorially in shoes of silver, but the Chinese characters 

 indicating the denomination are interpreted to mean "kwans." The 

 kwan was the equivalent of 10 strings of copper cash, or of one tael or 

 ounce of silver. The term "sycee" which is used by Ramsden as 

 the equivalent of "shoe of silver " is used by Morse to express silver 

 itself — thus he says "shoe of sycee." The shoes of which Morse 

 spoke weighed about 50 taels, but he also referred to "obvoid 

 lumps" of silver in circulation, weighing up to two or three taels. 



