COMMENTARY ON QING DYNASTY SYCEE

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In Chinese costume drama, it is often to find the scene which people spending boat-shaped gold and silver ingot. Actually, there are many "rules" in the circulation of sycees. More than 10 types of silver were commonly used.

In folk, small bits of 1 tael and 2 taels silver were mostly circulated.

Proceed from circulation of gold and silver, copper is still the primary currency in Ming and Qing dynasties, gold and silver ingots were running by officials and merchants. Common weights were 50 taels, 10 taels and 5 taels. The process is simple - for tax, levied by all parts of cities and counties eventually enters the imperial treasury. The " merchants " means business transaction, such as stamp the various brands, the merchant's name of the silver furnace ingot.

Apart from these two purposes, sycee mostly are 1 or 2 taels in circulation, people who with 10 taels or 20 taels were from wealth family.

Moreover, the density of silver is less than gold, so it is softer than gold, but it is not feasible to use the teeth to test the authenticity as shown in drama. In fact, if you want to spend money, first check the fineness and weight it. Breaking the silver into the parts, merchants usually used shears, weight it with small scale, similar way as "Chu Ying yuan" (The earliest primitive coinage of gold in China)

In addition, in the drama, for the shaping of big corrupt officials often receive gold, silver, priceless treasures from different people. The shining sycee is particularly impressive.

In fact, this is debatable. Take Qing Dynasty as an example, the so-called gold ingot, silver ingot did really exist, but the shape is totally different compare to those we see in the drama.

From other inscriptions, we can determine the origin of sycee.

In the Qing Dynasty, each province local sycee is different, and have different engraved or stamped inscription. Even if they have the same or similar shape, they can still be distinguished from different inscriptions.

Therefore, to examine a sycee, firstly you should start with recognizing the modeling, then inscriptions. Inscription usually includes reign title, places name, tax name and even in some places, the names of craftsmen were also printed. Artisans are responsible for each spindle. The difference in shape just like today's dialect, but the judgment of value depends on the fineness and weight of the sycee. So for the craftsman, the forgery also means that the knife is directly on their neck.

Back to the shape, there were more than hundreds type of sycee all over the country at that time, the most circulated is round-shape, it was divided into oval and spindle. Sichuan Sycee with Oval shape, and Zhejiang area with round shape. Below are other common shapes:

Guangdong and Guangxi circulation is "weight ingot"
Yunnan silver looks like arch, so named " arch ingot ";
Gansu and Shanxi are "groove ingot"; "mirror ingot" in Jiangxi;
"Ingot" in Shandong and Hebei;
Jiangsu is called "su tuo"; the shape of Fujian is like steamed bread, so it is called "steamed bun ingot ";
Shanxi and Henan, it was called "waist ingot". Shanxi ingot usually are with people's names while Henan emphasis the place names.

Official ingot inter-provincial circulation needs to melt the silver and recasting

Each of the local sycee has different shapes. They eventually entered into the imperial treasury, but were not circulated between the provinces and regions. Today we all share common currencies, but in ancient times, it was totally impossible.

What about temporary transfers? The ancients were practical - melt it and start all over again.

Simply speaking, it means to melt it and then recast according to fineness (silver content in different standard), number (different weight standard) to converse, perfect realization of " transforming". Therefore, with a bag of sycee unobstructed all over the world can only appear in the drama.

Go back to the " shoe-shaped ingot", it was existed in the Qing Dynasty, it was in ship-shape with two tilt wings, the middle part is convex but not flat, so it is a commonly called as "horseshoe ingot". In general, 50 taels are for the state treasury, some also for large commercial trade. Besides there are 10 taels of middle ingots and less than 5 taels small pieces of ingots.

It is suggested people should be careful before buying any sycee. Although local sycee has different shapes, but even they are from the same area, due to different year、different usage, the values will be totally different, so there are criminals trying to modify the engraved inscription, pass shoddy products off as ones of high quality.

In addition, just like the clothes turn worn after wearing for long time, local sycee would have damages in circulation. In recent years, with the rapid increase in value of the sycee, especially in the same type of sycee, the value difference between different quality is getting bigger and bigger, which spawned a new industry - Silver repair. However, it also makes a lot of collectors being trapped.

For those who are interested in sycee, it would be better for you to have in-depth study of sycee, or to consult the professional grading agencies. We hope you will enjoy collecting sycee!

杨瑞江

虽然不懂英文，但也要进来抢个沙发先！

GOOD！

THANKS！

ありがとうございます。

buychina

Thanks. it is a nice introduction about sycee, an interesting  and unique collection topic.

I am always curious about how this massive and weighty metal ingot  was circulated in daily life.  One might need a huge pocket to hold it and may not be able to carry that many one time. It would be extremely difficulty  to travel  long distance with such heavy metal, unless one had assistance from servant. In addition, one could easily be identified as a target of robber because he or she coud not hide anywhere of this ingot. furthermore, the fineness was hard to be judged unless one was the owner of money shop. all of the hassles made it unlikely to be used in circulation. However, amazingly, this thing indeed was used and many of them were kept up to now. The wisdom of ancients is beyond at least the power of my brain.

Of course, my question is about practicality of its circulation of sycee in ancient time. But as item of collection, it has indisputable value.  nevertheless, you need a big storage with a good security system if you want to be an ambitious collector because it takes a lot of space and is easily to be watched by uninvited visitor.