Numismatic museum, Beijing
Last Friday we also visited the Numismatic museum in Beijing, housed in a beautiful old bank building. There was in interesting exhibition of Chinese currency through the ages, including some really old paper money.
A lot of space was devoted to the efforts of the various Communist groups to issue money during the Chinese civil war. I take it that the Communists were so divided geographically that each group had to issue its own money. A few of the Chinese "soviets" issued bills with the countance of Lenin.
No explication in any language I can read here, but I take it this is a lithographic stone with which the bills were printed. I have never seen such a stone before.
The exhibition was interesting (I did, for example, get to see those "strings of cash" that they constantly talk about in Dream of the Red Mansions). It was funny to compare this museum to the numismatic museum in Stockholm (Kungliga Myntkabinettet), which I visted in July. Both museums very strongly emphasized the currency of their own country, but the Stockholm one also had some international exhibits. Among those I remember seeing both bills issued in the Western concessons in China and even emergency money issued in the legation quarter in Beijing during their siege in the Boxer rebellion. This is part of China's monetary history, but I suppose it is not shown in China, for ideological reasons. On the other hand, I do not remember in Stockholm seeing any money issued by the Chinese communists before 1949.
Sorry for the quality of the images. It is hard to photograph through glas monters.
A lot of space was devoted to the efforts of the various Communist groups to issue money during the Chinese civil war. I take it that the Communists were so divided geographically that each group had to issue its own money. A few of the Chinese "soviets" issued bills with the countance of Lenin.
No explication in any language I can read here, but I take it this is a lithographic stone with which the bills were printed. I have never seen such a stone before.
The exhibition was interesting (I did, for example, get to see those "strings of cash" that they constantly talk about in Dream of the Red Mansions). It was funny to compare this museum to the numismatic museum in Stockholm (Kungliga Myntkabinettet), which I visted in July. Both museums very strongly emphasized the currency of their own country, but the Stockholm one also had some international exhibits. Among those I remember seeing both bills issued in the Western concessons in China and even emergency money issued in the legation quarter in Beijing during their siege in the Boxer rebellion. This is part of China's monetary history, but I suppose it is not shown in China, for ideological reasons. On the other hand, I do not remember in Stockholm seeing any money issued by the Chinese communists before 1949.
Sorry for the quality of the images. It is hard to photograph through glas monters.
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Postat av: Anonym
Vad spännande!
Men du...ingen jid?! ;)
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