Money seems to have been coined in China, in gold and silver and lead, so 'early as the time of Confucius, but money payments aro still made in kind or by pieces of silver. Most of their calculations are made by a reckoning board. There is no coined money in China, except the brass pieces with a hole in the centre. Silver is sold by the weight, and an ounce is the equivalent of from 1700 to 1800 of these brass coins, which are called sapek by Europeans ; they have some pieces of brass called tsian, and in Mongol tchos, of which the inhabitants of Siberia make Tchok and Tchek ; they are of less value than a copec. A kind of notes are in circulation among private persons.
In British India, it was enacted that from the 1st September 1835 there should be coined a rupee (with doubles, halves, and quarters) to be called the Company's rupee, which should contain' 165 grains (11-12ths) pure silver, and 15 grains (1-12th) alloy. This new rupee, which was made a legal tender in all payments, is nearly equal to the former Farrakhabad, Madras, and Bombay rupees, and is received as an equivalent by them and for the Sonat rupee, and for 15-16ths of the Calcutta Sicea rupee. It is worth, reckoning silver at 56d. an ounce, ls. lid. and 2s. 0 d. stg., its nominal value being 2s. This current rupee bore on the one side the head of the reigning sovereign of Great Britain, and on the obverse the words E. I. Co., and the designation of the coin in English and Persian. It was also enacted that from the 1st September 1835, no gold coins shall be coined at any mint in India, except gold inolmrs or 15 rupee pieces (with the subdivisions), containing each 165 grains (11-12ths) pure gold, and 15 grains (1-12th) alloy. Such mohurs were consequently worth 29s. 2d. each. These coins were marked in the same way as the new rupees, but they were not a legal- tender.
About the year 1882, Sir Richard Temple, at a meeting of the Institute of Bankers in the London Institution, Finsbury Circus, gave a short account of the varied native coinages of India before the regulation of 1793. Ile pointed out that up to 1835 India had in effect a double standard or a system of bimetallism. Referring to the prac tice of hoarding on the part of the natives, he stated that in addition to silver, gold, and precious stones, they now held notes to the extent of several millions sterling and Government securities to the value of about 20 millions, and both notes and scrip were to some extent hoarded. He said the best opinions put the amount of silver coin in actual circulation in 1850 at 150 millions sterling; the best opinions would put it now at 200 millions. The'coins issued from the Indian mints
during a period of 35 years averaged 11 rupees per head of the whole population. That would amount to 220 millions sterling, but a deduction of 20 millions was to be made for the money withdrawn from circulation for hoarding. The total amount of the precious metals in India be put at 333 millions sterling in silver and 122 • millions in gold, or 455 millions sterling. Of this, 255 millions of silver and three millions of gold had been coined by the British mints ; but this total, while exceeding by 58 millions the highest estimate of the amount in circulation, was 197 millions less than the quantity of the precious metals possessed by the people of India. In esti mating the probable absorption of silver as coin in India, an analysis of the mint returns Since 1835 supplied the best criterion. The amount coined during that period gave an average of about 51-3 millions annually. In quiet years the amount coined varied from two to three millions, and in brisk years from 10 to 15 millions.
There are at present two mints in British India, one at Calcutta, the other at Bombay ; and in the ten years 1874 to 1883, the amounts coined yearly have ranged between £2,229,2•1 in 1882 and £16,344,553 in 1878,—in gold, mostly all iu Calcutta, averaging in silver, largely in Bombay, £6,268,070 ; and in copper, £77,583, about the same in the two mints. The average value of the British Indian currency notes, in the ten years, in circulation, has ranged from £10,670,407 in 1875 to £15,180,711 in 1883.
Persian coins are of .gold, silver, and copper, each metal being struck in almost its pure state. The gold coins aro called toman ; one of which in intrinsic value may now be equal to 10s. English. They were worth more formerly ; but during the last fifty years their size and weight have gradually decreased. There are two sorts of silver money ; the highest in value is the real, eight of which amount to a toman. The smaller silver coin is called the white'; eight of these being equal to a real. The copper money has the name of black, siabi ; and twenty-four of them amount to one real. Tomans are coined in almost every great province ; but they differ much in actual value, though all pass current for the same number of real.
Payments are made in the Turkish dominions in piastres and Spanish dollars, fifteen of the former being equal to one of the latter. The piastre is divided into forty para. A pound sterling is worth seventy to one hundred piastres.—Prinsep's Tibet ; Craufitrd's Dict. ; La Monnaie dans l'Antiquite, par F. Lenorniant ; Statistical Abstract.