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发表于 2015-12-22 13:52:38
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CoinsStory-1981 BronzeWare artifacts
To theoutside world coins are objects provided by faceless governments. In realitycoins are the products of people. Here are a few stories about modern Chinesecoins and the people who made them.
From the verybeginning in 1979 the People’s Bank of China set the priorities that launchedPRC coins to their prominence today. According to an account by Mr. Hu Fuqing(translated by Mr. Frank Wang) the goal was to make coins that were equal orbetter than the state of the art in the world – unique, exquisite, and graceful. Geng Daoming, the Vice Governor of the Bank of China at the time, declared three principles: the designs must be of the highest artistic quality; the workmanship must besuperb and the decorative accessories must also be beautiful.
This emphasison aesthetic excellence remains one of the strengths of modern Chinese coins to this day.
As with anynew project there was a learning curve for the China Mint as it began to tradewith foreign markets. Some experiences were very good, but not everything wentsmoothly. One story I have been told concerns an early set of coins; the 1981BronzeWareartifacts. An American distributor signed an agreement with the China Mint fortheir production. The entire mintage was supposed to be several thousand, butthe initial shipment was only a thousand sets. The Mint expected thedistributor to accept the balance of the sets later so it struck the full amount.As it happened there was no penalty in the contract for not buying the rest ofthe coins. The distributor refused to pay for any more, so with little otherchoice the China Mint apparently melted down the surplus. The declared mintageis 1,000 sets, the quantity in the first delivery.
I find itironic that while the American distributor took advantage of a contractloophole to save some money, he likely cost himself much greater profits lateron. When the China Mint began to look for distributors to sell the Panda coinseries this dealer was not considered. At first,the largest distributor forPanda coins was Taisei in Japan. Before long, though, the top sales position was taken over by an American company, Panda America.
Panda Americawas founded and owned by Martin Weiss. Mr. Weiss was a businessman with astrong sense for marketing and promotion. He also appreciated the artisticquality and integrity of Chinese coins. He soon was introduced to an importantmember of the technology department at the Shanghai Mint, Mr. Zhu Chunde. Thetwo would work together for the next twenty years.
This is whatMr. Weiss recalls about Mr. Zhu, “Mr. Zhu Chunde is somebody who helped designthe coins. He is somebody whom I worked with quite a bit from the beginninguntil the year 2000.
He was very good artistically and he coulddraw. If you gave him a concept he couldmake a drawing of it, like the Great Wall Panda, or theInventions and Discoveries.
As soon as Ipresented the idea for the Inventions and Discoveries of China he said, “Thatwill get approved.”
We workedtogether from 1982 on. He was at all the Panda distributor meetings because hewas the key man. There were many people who came and went. They weretransferred to other departments and so on. But he was always in charge of theactual making of the coins and their designs. Because he was so talented he wouldn’t be shifted to otherdepartments.
He was theman.”
The two men madea powerful creative pair who collaborated on manymilestones in modern Chinese numismatics. They are an example of how thetalents of many people helped fulfill Geng Daoming’s intent to make modern Chinese coins second to none.
By Peter Anthony |
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