Vietnamese văn (currency unit)

The inspiration to introduce the văn may have been to emulate the Chinese wén used on contemporary Qing dynasty cash coins which had just become a fiat currency, however unlike the Chinese system where all Chinese cash coins were cast from the same metals and the wén was the primary unit of account for coins made of the same metals, the Vietnamese system used the văn as a basic number currency symbol indicating how much zinc cash coins (銅鐱, đồng kẽm) a brass or bronze cash coin (đồng điếu) was worth, the Vietnamese cash coins-based currency system used the mạch (陌) and quán (貫) as units of account that could be based on either zinc cash coins or copper-alloy cash coins depending on the region or context.

It was continued to be used as a measurement for zinc cash coins when the French Indochinese piastre was introduced,[1] after which the term still appeared on Vietnamese cash coins and represented a subdivision of copper-alloy cash coins rather than the piastre, this was known in French as the sapèque en zinc, as the production of zinc coinage was ceased by the Imperial government of the Nguyễn dynasty around the year 1871.

[6][7] It first used by official decree in January 1868 during the reign of the Tự Đức Emperor which decreed that "the value of the large module copper cash coin passed to 6 (zinc) and the small copper coin to 4 zinc".

In November 1879 the official value of 6 copper phần was equal to 6 sapèques of zinc.

[8] In the year 1893, large brass Thành Thái Thông Bảo (成泰通寶) cash coins with a denomination of 10 văn (十文, thập văn), or 10 zinc cash coins, started being produced by the Huế Mint.