1 Cash - Wang Mang Fifth reform, privately cast

Wang Mang's monetary reforms were a cascading disaster. Each successive reform — he issued five in roughly two decades — attempted to reintroduce archaic currency forms drawn from the Zhou dynasty, partly as ideological theater to legitimize his Xin dynasty as a restoration of ancient virtue. By the fifth reform, the official coinage was so complex and so frequently revalued downward that private casting had become endemic. This piece is a product of that breakdown: not a mint product but a privately struck imitation, circulating during the final chaotic years before the Han restoration under Guangwu in 25 AD.

The weight — well below official specification — is itself the evidence of informal production.