CHINA KANSU cast copper 50 cash 1920 AD

Description

The cast coins produced during the early decades of the Chinese Republic are usually considered “warlord” issues.

During the Chinese Republic period many provincial administrations either had their own armies or were run by the armies themselves. Some local leaders would be called “governors,” others would be called “warlords,” depending in part on how they came to power.

Kansu (Gansu) is a province in northwest China. In the Republican period there was a lot of devolution of power to provincial and other local authorities, and the government of Gansu issued its own money.

The big player in East Asia is China, of course. Then there is Japan and Korea, throw in Mongolia. South of China and east of India, but not including, for the most part, the islands to the east, is what we call Southeast Asia. From Burma to Malaya there have been a series of local kingdoms for about 2000 years. Russia, with its Asian Siberia, doesn’t count. We consider it part of Europe.

By “Modern World Coins” we mean here, generally, the round, flat, shiny metal objects that people have used for money and still do. “Modern,” though, varies by location. There was some other way they were doing their economies, and then they switched over to “modern coins,” then they went toward paper money, now we’re all going toward digital, a future in which kids look at a coin and say “What’s that?” We’ll say: “We used to use those to buy things.” Kids will ask “How?” The main catalog reference is the Standard Catalog of World Coins, to which the KM numbers refer.