White-Metal Coinage / 白金币（西汉）

Definition

White-metal coinage / 白金币 is the Han Wudi-era silver-tin issue described as three unusually high-denomination pieces distinguished by shape and dragon, horse, or tortoise designs. In the current wiki it is a bounded case of fiscalized token issue whose value, circulation, and effects require stronger numismatic evidence.

Current Synthesis

Hanji 321 places the issue after 白鹿皮币 in 汉武帝’s response to fiscal shortage. It describes a round dragon piece valued at three thousand cash, a square horse piece valued at five hundred, and an oval tortoise piece valued at three hundred, all made from a silver-tin mixture rather than modern platinum.

The episode’s durable governance claim is that a high state-assigned value can widen the gap between production cost and nominal purchasing power while also enlarging the incentive to counterfeit. In its account, severe anti-counterfeiting law then produces many executions, yet the issue lasts only about five years. This supports a narrow design-and-enforcement pattern, not the stronger claim that assigned value alone caused abolition or a measured devaluation of all private silver.

Key Claims

• The issue consists of three silver-tin denominations differentiated by shape and animal design.
• Their assigned values are high relative to the episode’s implied material cost and are presented as a response to fiscal shortage.
• A wide metal-value and nominal-value gap can create a counterfeit incentive.
• Capital punishment may increase enforcement severity without establishing durable monetary acceptance.
• The episode reports a life of nearly five years, making policy duration an observed limit but not a demonstrated causal explanation.

Evidence

Design and valuation:

• Hanji 321 describes the three shapes, animal designs, silver-tin material, and values of three thousand, five hundred, and three hundred cash.

Counterfeiting and duration:

• Hanji 321 says the high value encouraged illicit casting, that convicted counterfeiters were executed in large numbers, and that the policy was abolished after nearly five years.

Counterevidence & Qualifications

The concept rests on one short popular-history source rather than a numismatic study. The source does not establish dimensions, weight, fineness, production cost, minting authority, geographic circulation, convertibility, acceptance, price effects, surviving specimens, aggregate issue, counterfeit prevalence, execution totals, or the formal reason for abolition. Its language of “虚币” and rapid silver devaluation is an interpretive judgment, not a quantified monetary conclusion.

What Changed

• Created a bounded concept distinguishing Han white-metal coinage from modern platinum and from noncirculating white-deer-skin ritual currency.

Related Concepts

• 白鹿皮币 - preceding fiscal device whose compulsory ritual use differs from a minted silver-tin issue.
• 五铢钱中央统一铸造 - later centralized circulating-coin reform with a different standardization and mint-control logic.
• counterfeit currency policing - enforcement problem intensified when nominal value makes illicit production attractive.
• 货币信用 - wider question of whether state assignment creates durable monetary acceptance.