2002-12-14 - 11:09 p.m.

In Search of Chinese Coins

Beijing, Nov. 16

Continuing the story of our trip to China

After we returned to our hotel, we knew that we had our work cut out for us. After all, it was our last night in Beijing.

First it was off to the business center to check on how our reservations were coming and, of course to check my eBay auctions. I am awful, I know.

There was an email in Lily's account that provoked a volley of curses from her. Some dork at the hotel where we'd made reservations in Xi'an had emailed her back saying that the low internet rates were unavailable because it was "the height of the tourist season."

Considering that it was freezing outside with snow flurries, we sort of doubted that bit of info. In a world where everyone was honest the letter would have read "can't give you internet rates because we are cheap, sleazy fucks." It looked like we were going to have to spend $80-$100 a night, but I'd be damned if we'd spend it there. We made reservations at the local Hilton instead.

Now it was time for some serious shopping, but first there was something I wanted to check up on.

Whenever I travel to places I like to pick up mint coin sets. I get the impression that these are pretty common tourist purchases since I'd frequently seen them in tourist gift shops in other countries. I have mint sets from England, Bermuda, Italy, even Vatican City. However, this didn't seem to be the case in China. There was a display of coins in a department store in Nanjing, but it turned out to be old foreign coins. I was looking for a set of Chinese coins, all denominations, preferably the current year.

I had no idea where to find such a thing, so today I asked Vivian, our tour guide. It took me a while to explain what I wanted because she seemed puzzled why anyone would want to but a bunch of coins. She made the suggestion that I should check at a post office. So, the first thing we did upon leaving the hotel was go off in search of one. They sort of stand out among the storefront because they are colored green in a country where everything else is colored red and gold.

There was a rather large post office only about a block from the hotel. Since it was after 5 p.m., I'd only meant to go there to check out where it was so we could come back tomorrow morning. However, I was pleased to find the post office still open, so we went inside.

Inside there were lots of stamp sets on display that you could buy, so maybe Vivian's suggestion about checking here was a good one. We (meaning Lily) had a hard time explaining to the employees there what we wanted, but when the light dawned, one of them went scurrying off, to return a couple minutes later with some large books in tow. The books turned out to be very pretty coin albums labeled "Year of the Horse," and the theme of all the coins inside was: coins with animals on them from countries all over the world! While it was cute, none of the coins inside were from China. Not exactly what I was looking for.

Another book they showed was a historical book with coins from the Qing dynasty going back to the 1600s. It was kind of expensive in Chinese terms, but pretty cheap in American terms, so I decided to buy that so at least all the post office employees hadn't been running around in vain.

I guess coin collecting is not a big business in China. In the U.S.A. the mint makes millions of dollars a year polishing and repackaging $1.91 worth of coins, then selling them for $13.95. Apparently this moneymaking scheme hasn't occurred to the Chinese government yet, but I'm sure it will eventually.

The fact of the matter is, the Chinese don't seem to care about their coins that much, even though they've been minting them for thousands of years. In Shanghai we saw a display of imperial coins going back over 2,000 years, and as far as I could tell, all these coins looked alike. They were copper or bronze discs with Chinese writing on them and a square hole in the middle. The hole was for tying the coins together with string for easy counting. Anyway, since I couldn't read Chinese, a coin from the Qin dynasty (220 B.C.) looked exactly like a Qing dynasty coin from 1911.

Modern Chinese coins don't have holes in them, but they are very plain looking. They have a wreath on one side and a picture of some plant on the other. Almost as dull as our never-changing coins.

I got the impression that the modern Chinese didn't think too much of their coins either since we almost invariably got bills as change instead of coins. The smallest banknote is for 5 Jiao, which is half a Chinese dollar, or Yuan. Since the value of the 5 Jiao note is about six cents American, you don't really need anything smaller, in fact nearly all prices are rounded up to the nearest Yuan, so once you get 5 Jiao notes they are hard to get rid of. Not that I minded that much - Chinese money is very colorful and pretty, the little 5 Jiao note especially. I found it very amusing that at the Ming tombs nearly all the bills strewn all over the imperial thrones were 5 Jiao notes. I imagine the Chinese think the Emperors up in heaven are smiling down at them for being so thrifty, i.e.: cheap.

Anyway, this adventure convinced me that Chinese mint coin sets simply don't exist. While coin collecting is not unknown (the post office had empty albums you could put coins in) the government hasn't gotten in on it. Well, at least the modern coins have dates in roman numerals so you can tell one year from another, unlike the Imperial coins.

Now, on to more important stuff!