What material are ancient coins made of?

In ancient times, copper was widely used as the main material of coins, iron, lead, silver, gold and other materials were also used, and later developed into paper money.

Raw materials:

The coins officially issued in ancient China were mainly made of low-value metals such as copper and iron, but the situation of all kinds of ancient coins was different, so in terms of materials, besides a large number of copper and iron coins, there were other metals such as gold, silver, tin and lead, as well as jade, stone, wood, mussels, bones, tortoise shells and pottery clay.

Coin shape

In ancient times, the form of money was very complicated. There were dozens of materials used as money only, such as copper, lead, iron, gold, silver, jade, turtle, shellfish, livestock, leather, silk and paper. However, the basic form followed for thousands of years is the square hole round copper coin, and its standard styles include the five baht of Yuanshou in the Western Han Dynasty, the three official coins of Shanglin and the Kaiyuan Bao Tong in the early Tang Dynasty. Moderate weight, weighing about 4 grams, good meat quality, with round fruit. In addition, there are round holes, round holes, shovel shapes, knife shapes, rectangles (money cards), irregular ovals and other forms.

The same money is different in size, weight, composition, material, edition, words on the front of the money, symbols on the back of the money, presence or absence of Guo, heavy wheels, heavy goods, four exits, decisive writing and shape transfer. , and there are different situations such as taking back, taking back, trimming, grinding, reading and repeating while reading. According to the nature of money, there are also duplicate records.

The most common form of copper coins is small flat coins, that is, one penny, also known as flat coins. It is the smallest monetary unit in the era of using copper coins. Its diameter is about 2.4-2.5 cm and its weight is about 3-4 grams. There are two, three, five, ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty or even hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Refer to the above? Baidu encyclopedia-ancient coins