What was the traditional Chinese weight 釐 (cash) used for?

Factual Questions
1

Doing a bit of research on traditional Chinese weights today. According to Wikipedia, a catty is about 604 grams, each catty can be split into 16 taels, each tael can be split into 10 mace, each mace can be split into 10 candareen and each candereen can be split into 10 cash. What this means is that a cash ends up being 3.7 milligrams.

The Wikipedia article only has scant details on the cash, noting that it was being used as early as the 1830s. My question is, what possible use did the Chinese have for a unit weighing 3.7 milligrams in the 1830s? Using current gold prices, a cash of gold would be worth about 15 cents, a cash of silver would be worth less than a thousandth of a cent.

Even a single sheet of gold leaf is already half a cash. How did they even have the measuring equipment to measure a cash in the first place?

2

I found one:

https[:]//en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces26764.html

Which is made of bronze. I think this is the same as a US bill that is a silver or gold certificate, the bill obviously weighs less than its denomination in value of the metal. Assuming it’s official, that bronze li was worth 3.7mg of gold.

And, if you think about it, gold is soft. It would not last long in trade at all.

3

If a tael is about 40 grams, and a tael = 1000 li, then 1li is about 40 mg, not 4 ??

ETA a cash coin would weigh more like a few grams, no?

4

Here are links that go into much more detail.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_cash

Seems to me, the penny is the U.S. equivalent. There’s no real value to it as a single coin, but get a hundred or more and you can actually buy something. There have been proposals to eliminate the use of them, but people balk at the idea of paying up to four cents more per transaction.

5

ETA 2, yep, electronbee’s coin weighs 3.1 g. A string of 1000 coins = 1 silver ingot

Which has nothing to do with why you would want to measure 30 or 40 mg, but why not?

6

I can think of jewels, gold, and drugs, for instance, that you would want to weigh with that precision. Perhaps someone can find Qing Dynasty references?

7

So the value would be $1.50, not 15c. But whatever: when I think of cash I picture them being on a string. Not one at a time. (And of course they are equivalent to gold, not made from gold)

8

There is a misunderstanding here. There was no 40 mg gold coin. “Cash”, in English, apparently refers both to the 40mg unit of weight (li), and also to the 4g brass coin with a square hole in it (tongqian) nominally worth 1/1000 of a 40g silver ingot. That is, the “one cash” coin was worth one “cash” (li) of silver.

Reference: Qing Period Money (www.chinaknowledge.de)

People did indeed string cash coins up in multiples of 1000 or at least 100 for obvious reasons; that’s what the hole is for :slight_smile:

9

I forgot to add, those coins were indeed worth about 1 yuan or 15c, not $1.50.

10

Well made balance scales can be very accurate, and as it what you’d want to weigh at that scale, spices are expensive, small and light.

11

I was playing around with an assortment of ancient coins and noted that one that I handled [literally the size and weight of a sequin] would have been perfect to make a custom stamping die set to bash out the jinglies for recreating The Golden Man’s costume. I do know people who buy the gold ingots to bash into jewelry findings… I also know that you will find coins drilled and sewn/added to clothing and jewelry for women and men to use as portable wealth.