Really Old School Trivia Quiz

Answer: cowrie

Many countries used shells like the money cowrie as a trade unit thousands of years ago. They became more valuable the further one traveled inland, as long-distance travel was difficult at the time. Cowrie shells were often buried with the dead. They were such an important exchange unit that the Chinese symbol for money was based on the cowrie shell.

Some of China's oldest money was carved in imitation of a cowrie shell. The so-called ant-nose (or ghost) money of 2500 years ago was also shaped in the form of a cowrie.

Answer: Yes

Knife money was as best as we can tell intended to mimic actual knives. They were a replacement for the trading of actual knives and spades, which were extremely important way back in the day. Older knife money tends to be curved and is shaped closer to an actual knife.

A small number of knife money are straight, and others are large and heavy. Knife money issued by Wang Mang looks like a key in appearance. Although some knife money was issued as late as 1820, a majority of the varieties were made before the time of Jesus.

Answer: spade

As with knife money, spade money was meant to imitate a tool (spades), and the oldest ones were the most similar to spades of the time. They became more symbolic as they were made over the centuries. The oldest of spade money has hollow handles. Varieties made include those with pointed tips, square feet (pictured), and arched feet. One variety came with three holes, but spade money did not otherwise have holes in it. Most spade money production ceased by 200 BCE, though they were briefly made again during the first two decades of the Common Era.

Answer: Qin Shi Huang

It was Emperor Qin Shi Huang who issued China's first unified coinage, putting a halt to the spade and knife money that were the most common money types before 220 BCE. The first unified coinage saw the introduction of the banliang (literally, half liang or ounce). Most banliang were made of bronze, and some were made of gold.

They were the very first Chinese coins that were designed to be circular with a round hole, and this design continued in other denominations long after issuing of the banliang was ceased.

Answer: cash

The oldest cash coins were very small and uniface. There are a lot of different cash coins, but they can in part be distinguished by whether or not they are uniface, and if they have two characters on a side or four. Cash coins were issued for over two millennia. In the late 1800s, Chinese provinces started issuing yuan coins, and the yuan eventually became the standard currency of China.

Note: although they share the same name, cash as we think of it is an Italian word, while the Chinese cash coin can be traced through Tamil, Sanskrit, and Sinhalese.

Answer: symbolic of the union of the heavens and earth

The original reason for holes in the center of their money was practical, to string them together and create larger denominations of exchange. The British Museum suggests that this was a symbolic representation of the union of the heavens and the earth.

In Chinese cosmology, the earth was represented as a square while the heavens were considered domed. The round coin with a square hole motif that originated in China was also adopted by Vietnam, Korea, and Japan in making their early coins.

Answer: False

The Chinese did not hammer their coins the way that many old civilizations did. They cast them from molds instead. Seed coins (or mother coins) were impressed in clay or sand to create a consistent mold, much more so than coins that were individually hammered out by hand. Because of this process, the coins were all connected when cast, forming an actual "money tree" from which they were separated to be used (the money tree went on to become a mythological object and is pictured here).

After being separated, they would often be filed and polished.

A great deal of quality control went into making old Chinese coins.

Answer: Song, 960-1279

It should not be a surprise that the people who invented paper also invented paper money. Jiaozi was issued during the 10th Century in Sichuan to replace the bulky iron coins that were in use at the time. Paper money was so unusual that Marco Polo wrote about how "the Great Kaan causeth the bark of trees, made into something like paper, to pass for money all over his country." Old Chinese paper money was stamped with banknote seals to deter counterfeiting.

Other early paper currencies of the time include the huizi and the chao.

Answer: sycee

Meaning "fine silk" (yes, really), sycee were ingots that were exchanged as money. They were often made by individuals for local exchange and thus there are a great many varieties of them. Although they came in a few shapes, the best-known ones were boat-shaped, like the imperial gold sycee that is pictured here. Sycee did not have a face value and were appraised by weight and purity.

In modern times, items are sometimes made in the boat shape of a sycee as a symbol of prosperity and good luck.

Answer: Tibet

Tibet is a bit of a geographical sore point, but it is a part of China. Numismatically, Tibet relied on a bartering system for much longer than the rest of China, and afterwards coins imported from Nepal. It took until 1763 for coins to be struck in the region of Tibet, and these coins were denominated in tangka (pictured) and sho.

The Chinese first opened mints in Tibet in the 1790s, and coins were struck by Tibet until 1953. Banknotes were first issued in 1913 and were in use until 1959 until the Chinese issued renminbi yuan as a replacement.