Spade money
[1] The earlier versions of spade coins tended to have a fragile, hollow socket, reminiscent of a metal shovel.
[4] Hollow-handled spades (Chinese: 布幣; pinyin: bùbì) are a link between weeding tools used for barter and stylised objects used as money.
The crude writing is that of the artisans who made the coins, not the more careful script of the scholars who wrote the votive inscriptions on bronze.
Nearly all have distinct legs, suggesting that their pattern was influenced by the pointed shoulder hollow-handled spades with further styling for easy handling.
[18] Three hole spades are believed to have circulated as a form of currency in what is now eastern Shanxi and Hebei sometime during the end of the Warring States period.
[18] Based on archaeological finds and digs in the modern era as well as the placenames of the cities which have been identified from the obverse inscriptions on various three hole spades, the strongest evidence points towards the hypothesis that they were produced by Zhao.
[17] The first modern documented three hole spade occurred around two centuries ago during the Manchu Qing dynasty period when it was acquired by artist and epigrapher Zhang Tingji (張廷濟, 1768–1848).
[18] During the early Republic of China period the Xia Qu Yang three hole spade was acquired by the famous Chinese coin collector Zhang Shuxun (張叔馴, zhāng shū xùn) and the rubbing of the Xia Qu Yang three hole spade has appeared in almost every major Chinese coin catalogue that has published since this period.
[18] Modern Chinese numismatists and scholars are puzzled as to why an ancient state would manufacture so many different varieties of a coin in such small quantities.
[19][20] This also notably makes it China's first ever recorded instance of silver coinage, according to an article in "China Numismatics Volume 3 of 1983" (simplified Chinese: 中国钱币 1983年第3期; traditional Chinese: 中國錢幣 1983年第3期; pinyin: zhōng guó qián bì yì qiān jiǔ bǎi bā shí sān nián dì sān qī).
[22] Hao Zhao claimed that it wasn’t for another 150 years that workers at the Guanzhuang foundry would also begin to mint spade coins outside the inner city's southern gate.
[1] Bill Maurer, a professor of anthropology at the University of California Irvine and director of the Institute for Money, Technology and Financial Inclusion, noted that the completeness of the find gives weight to the assertions made in Antiquity.
[21] Mauer further noted that an entire foundry, which is full of carbon residue associated with the production of the item itself, was discovered lending more weight to the accuracy of the radiocarbon-dating proving the authenticity of the assertions made by the Zhao and other researchers.
[21][4] George Selgin, director of the Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives at the Cato Institute, says while he notes that it is an impressive find, "It doesn't change our basic understanding of when the first coins were produced.
