1 Cash - Guangxu Tongbao, Boo-jyi

The Board of Revenue Mint in Beijing — known in Manchu administrative terminology as the "Boo-jyi" mint — was one of two imperial mints operating in the capital during the Guangxu reign, the other being the Board of Works. Both mints cast cash coins using methods essentially unchanged since the Han dynasty, even as machine-struck coinage was being introduced at provincial mints across China from the late 1880s onward. This piece belongs to that transitional window, cast rather than struck, while the Qing monetary system was fragmenting under pressure from foreign trade imbalances and the costs of successive military defeats.